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Brigham Young. . 


By 
M. R. ‘Werner 


Author of “Barnum” 


TVustrated 





New York 
Harcourt, Brace and Company 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC, 
Copyright, 1924, 1925, by 


The Curtis Publishing Company 


First edition, June, 1925 


PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY 
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY 
RAHWAY, N. J. 


WILLIAM L. O'BRIEN 


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PREFACE 


Ir is impossible to write the life of Brigham Young without also 
writing the history of Mormonism, and it is impossible to write 
the history of Mormonism without writing the life of Joseph 
Smith, Jr., its author and proprietor. This book attempts to carry 
out the three tasks together, but I.do not claim that I have 
written a complete history of Mormonism up to the present day. 
It has been my aim to write that history as it was affected by 
the personality of Brigham Young, and as it affected his person- 
ality. But one cannot write about Brigham Young without ex- 
plaining Joseph Smith. However, I am primarily interested in 
Brigham Young, because it is my conviction that without Brig- 
ham Young the Mormons would never have been important after 
the first few years of their institutional life, but without the 
Mormons Brigham Young might have been a great man. He 
was the sturdy character among the leaders of the Mormon move- 
ment, and it is due to his personality rather than to any other 
factor that Mormonism developed into a widespread creed and 
an extraordinary economic organization. That personality was 
an exceptional compound of unbounded religious enthusiasm 
and practical economic and political ability. On the celebra- 
tion of his birthday in Utah many years after his death a 
rhetorical anniversary orator said: “He was a Vermont Pericles, 
an American Cromwell, a Western Columbus.’”’ A more tem- 
perate admirer, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William H. Seward, 
is credited with the remark that America had never produced a 
greater statesman than Brigham Young. Brigham Young him- 
self put the matter more simply when he said to his people in the 
course of a sermon: “I am a Yankee; I guess things, and very 
frequently I guess right.” 

It is necessary to recall the importance of the Mormon move- 
ment in American affairs during the span of Brigham Young’s 
life, from June, 1801, until August, 1877. Its political and eco- 
nomic significance, as well as its influence on social life, cannot 
be overestimated. The two permanent issues of the government 


from 1830, when Mormonism was founded, until 1877, when 
Vv 


V1 PREFACE 


Brigham Young died, were slavery and Mormonism. Other 
issues came, were solved, or solved themselves, but it seemed to 
the politicians of the period that slavery and Mormonism would 
be with them forever, and therefore they did not find it necessary 
to do anything about them until acute circumstances compelled 
hasty action. During the first fifty years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury there was almost as much worry throughout the United 
States about Mormonism as there was about slavery. At the 
organization of the Republican Party Brigham Young and his 
Mormons occupied the attention of the platform framers, and in 
the campaign processions of General John C. Frémont there was 
a large banner reading: “The Abolishment of Slavery and Polyg- 
amy; the Twin Relics of Barbarism.” By 1840, ten years after 
the organization of the Church, Mormonism had become a na- 
tional issue and had aroused international interest. Even those 
who wrote rabidly against them admitted in their prefaces that 
it was important to fathom the depths of rascality of this people. 
' They had to admit Mormons were peculiar and extraordinary, 
much as they wished to make them out only criminal and profane. 
From 1840 until the death of Brigham Young Mormonism con- 
tinued to arouse the perplexity of the nation and the curiosity of 
various peoples in the world. Even to-day statements about the 
Mormons are found occasionally in the newspapers, when some 
one contends that they are, or are not, practising polygamy, or 
that they do, or do not, dominate politics. 
The story of the Mormons in the history of the United States is 
a great drama, and it is one of the few stories of that stature in 
our past. With that fatal inevitability which constitutes tragedy, 
the elements of Mormon philosophy and economics were, in the 
circumstances of the United States of the period, sure to produce 
| opposition and persecution. And the Mormons could no more 
have changed these elements of their philosophy and economics 
| than they could have changed the color of their eyes. Their 
' struggle was not, as their contemporaries tried to make out, a 
simple conflict of right and wrong, but a more intricate clash of 
| personalities and ambitions. From the beginning when, through 
| their prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., the Mormons claimed direct 
~ communion with God, other people who did not dare to aspire 
to such distinction, defamed the characters of their leaders, and 
drove the followers from their homes, until the end, when, at 
the age of seventy-one, Brigham Young was arrested for lascivi- 


PREFACE Vil 


ous cohabitation, the story of Brigham Young and the Mormons 
is one long series of struggles against_men and nature. Even 
to-day the story retains elements of mild tragedy. It may be 
said by some that the Mormons have triumphed over their en- 
vironment, for the Census Bureau now credits them with more 
than 400,000 members, and the Church is immensely wealthy, but 
polygamy, one of the distinctive spiritual fruits of their new 
revelation, is against the law of the land, and the same spirit of 
skepticism which is beginning to doubt the virgin birth of Christ 
is beginning, among the younger generation of Utah, to question 
the visions of Joseph Smith, Jr. 

Viscount Amberly in a study of Mormonism summed up its 
past achievements admirably: 


“Tn a nation remarkable for its toleration of every creed, it has 
excited the most implacable hatred, calling down upon itself a san- 
guinary persecution, from which it has emerged stronger than be- 
fore. In an unexplored and barren region, it has founded a flourish- 
ing colony which is likely before long to take its place as a State 
of the American Union. In the midst of a Democratic Republic, 

lit has erected a Theocratic despotism. Among believers, accus- 
tomed from infancy to think that all revelation had closed with the 

' last book of the New Testament, it has procured the acceptance of 

| a new revelation as equal in authority to the Bible, and has estab- 
lished the persuasion that men are still inspired, as they were of 

i old, to communicate the will of God to mankind. Among races 
accustomed for centuries to look with abhorrence upon the practice 

| of polygamy, it has implanted in its followers the firm conviction 

| that ito be the husband of many wives is an act of the highest vir- 
tue.” 


It is my purpose to show how these things happened. It is not 
my intention to expose Mormonism. My conviction is that 
Mormonism is a perfect example of religion carried to its illogical 
conclusions, and that is what makes it more fascinating than 
most of the dissenting sects in the religious history of the United 
States. All other sects were amazed by its effrontery and out- 
raged by its acts only because the Mormon leaders were men with 
literal minds; they determined to puzzle out exactly what the 
Bible meant in everything it said and to act upon what other 
churchgoers were content merely to repeat. And the Mormon 
minds were so literal and so untrained that they could not under- 
stand the persecution which was visited upon them by the Chris- 


cere 


™ 


weve. 


Vill PREFACE 


tians of other denominations and by the exponents of other eco- 
nomic and political beliefs. This persecution bewildered, baffled, 
and enraged them. To take the Bible seriously was both their 
crime and their misfortune, and it was too bad for their comfort 
that there was not a little cynicism in their fanaticism. 

Neither do I intend to accept the Mormon theology. Gibbon 
has pointed out the necessary attitude: “The theologian may 
indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended 
from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy 
duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable 
mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long 
residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of be- 
ings.” My attitude towards the religious emotions and experi- 
ences recorded by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and the men 


‘around them is based on the advice of William James: “The only 


sound plan, if we are ourselves outside the pale of such emotions, 
is to observe as well as we are able those who feel them, and to 
record faithfully what we observe.”’ 

Mormon and anti-Mormon literature is frequently unreliable. 
Most anti-Mormon writers, and some Mormon writers, like the 
inhabitants of that mythical South Sea Island where people live 
by taking in each other’s washing, live by quoting each other. 
Personal religious predilections have led men and women to per- 
vert facts for the comfort of their own souls. It is now possible, 
however, to write of the Mormons in the proper perspective. 
They have a history and some attendant traditions, as well as 
appropriate legends and martyrs; and their present condition, 
though it is one of material prosperity and placid growth, seems 
to indicate that never again will they be extraordinary enough to 
add to that background. 

Polygamy has been abolished, and with it has disappeared the 
‘most fruitful source of opposition to Mormonism. Almost every 
outraged woman who visited Utah from 1860 to 1880 wrote a 
book on the horrors of having half a husband and dedicated it 
“To the Suffering Women of Utah.”’ The books invariably com- 
bine disturbed equanimity and unintelligent inaccuracy, and pre- 
tend to reveal secrets which no good Mormon wished to keep. 
As history they are useless and as entertainment ineffective, but 
they seemed to satisfy a need at the time; there were so many of 
them, and they went into so many editions. People bought them, 


PREFACE . 1X 


and, if they knew nothing about Mormonism, believed them. And 
so the Mormon became to the minds of men, women, and children 
in the eastern states a sort of leering, horned beast, who a) 
steal your wife, marry your daughter, and baptize your baby, 
while you were not looking. 

The sex interest in polygamy, so far as Brigham Young is 
concerned, is still widespread. The first question men ask con- 
cerning him is, “How many wives did he have?” Brigham” 
Young, in the course of one of his sermons, had something vigor- 
ous and interesting to say about this curiosity: 


“We say, give us the truth; but when strangers come to see me 
their first reflection is, ‘I would like to ask him a question if I dare.’ 
What is it? It is all about wives. My conscience! what a genera- 
tion of gentlemen and ladies we have! Why the mind of a pure 
Saint and Christian is above such things. If it is necessary to take 
a wife, take one; if it is necessary to have a husband, have one. If 
it is necessary to have two wives, take them. If it is right, reason- 
able and proper and the Lord permits a man to take half a dozen 
wives, take them; but if the Lord says let them alone, let them 
alone. . .”. 

“But, instead of such principles as these occupying people’s minds 
now-a-days, it is, ‘How many wives have you, Mr. Young? Oh, I 
do want to ask Mr. Young how many wives he has.’ Ladies who 
come into my office very frequently say, “I wonder if it would hurt 
his feelings if | were to ask him how many wives he has?’ Let 
me say to all creation that I would as lief they should ask me that 
question as any other; but I would rather see them anxious to 
learn about the Gospel. Having wives is a secondary considera- 
tion; it is within the pale of duty, and consequently, it is all right. 
But to preach the Gospel, save the children of men, build up the 
kingdom of God, produce righteousness in the midst of the people; 
govern and control ourselves and our families and all we have 
influence over; make us of one heart and one mind; to clear the 
world from wickedness—this fighting and slaying, this mischievous 
spirit now [1871] so general, and to subdue and drive it from the 
face of the earth, and to usher in and establish the reign of uni- 
versal peace, is our business, no matter how many wives a man 
has got, that makes no difference here or there. I want to say, and 
I wish to publish it, that I would as soon be asked how many wives 
I have got as any other question, just as soon; but I would rather 
see something else in their minds, instead of all the time thinking, 
‘How many wives have you;’ or ‘I wonder whom he slept with last } 


x PREFACE 


night.’ I can tell those who are curious on this point. I slept with 
all that slept, and we slept on one universal bed—the bosom of our 
mother earth, and we slept together. ‘Did you have anybody in bed 
with your? ‘Yes.’ ‘Who was it?’ It was my wife, it was not 
your wife, nor your daughter nor sister, unless she was my wife 
and that too legally. I can say that to all creation, and every honest 
man can say the same; but it is not all who are professed Christians 
who can say it, and I am sorry to say it, not all professed ‘Mormons’ 
can say this.” i 


There was much more to Brigham Young than his family life, 
and, while due attention will be paid to that in its proper place, 
it is my aim to tell the rest of his story, which has been hidden 
by the skirts of his wives since his death, and which was beclouded 
by partisan animosity during his lifetime. What Gibbon prefaces 
as his intention with regard to Constantine, I have tried to adopt 
as my principle with regard to Brigham Young: “By the impartial 
union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest ad- 
mirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his most 
implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just portrait of 
that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of history 
should adopt without a blush.” Since those things for which his 
unthinking admirers often praise a man most are sometimes his 
most obvious defects, and since those defects for which his most 
implacable enemies blame him with the greatest fervor are just 
as often his most important characteristics, there is not much 
chance of doing a man injustice so long as the materials of adu- 
lation and hate are available. In the case of Brigham Young we 

, are fortunate in possessing a full library of Mormon propaganda 
and anti-Mormon polemic. 

But the nineteen volumes of the sermons delivered by Brigham 
Young and his principal associates in Salt Lake City, which were 
printed for the edification of the Saints abroad, are the most 
valuable source of material. The Journal of Discourses by 
Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-day Saints, His Two Counsellors, The Twelve Apostles 
and Others, as the books were called, are stenographic reprints of 
most of the sermons delivered in Utah. In these the whole life 
of the man and the Church is vividly portrayed. I have checked 
this direct testimony with every other available source of ma- 


PREFACE x1 


terial, and it is on the whole accurate, for, given freedom of 
speech, almost any man usually succeeds in giving himself away. 

My thanks are due to Elizabeth Hall Dietz for valuable 
assistance. 


M. R. W. 


1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, pp. 160, 162. 


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CHAPTER 


Table of Contents 


PREFACE 


IN THE BULRUSHES 

A YANKEE MoHAMMED 

Tue House or BonpaGe 

THe Lanp or Ecypr 

Exopus 

SINAI ey i 

PurITAN PoLyGAmMy 

BrRIiGHAM YOUNG AND His WiIvEs 
POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 

SHAM BATTLE : 
MountTaIn Meapows MaAssAcrE 
A CooPERATIVE ZION 

THE Enp . 

BIBLIOGRAPHY . 
INDEX Sane ai Pie a 


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Last of Illustrations 


BrigHAM YOUNG So Meg ea OMe Aba en Mes. Ae he a Bea aera 
PAGE 
Lucy SMITH hee he eat okey ee eA RS } 1 a ts: 
JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AND AN ANGEL OF Gop INSPECTING THE GOLDEN 
PLATES OF THE Book oF MorMon AT CuMoRAH Hitt. Ree Ss: 
Tue AncEL Moront DELIVERING THE GOLDEN PLATES AND THE 
Urim AnD THUMMIM To JOSEPH SMITH, JR.> . . « +. 30 
FACSIMILE SPECIMEN SUBMITTED BY JOSEPH SMITH as “Car- 
BTPOrS cot ONGRAVEDSON (THE (sOLDEN PLATES oie 20S Pye oe 
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PP SRE TT EUG REL UE CAS al ge Ra ag lig lege Rok, ARO, aI TE MN Ae cera CE 
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BPA EUEG VELOC PT Te ls Fen vue On tks Net ea Mee een RNS ig A hPa ee rie ROY 
EXPULSION OF THE Mormons From Nauvoo MacRae DURKEE se 0 | 
Jos—EpH SMITH AT THE Heap or Nauvoo LEGION . . . = . 204 
SMSLIGM GRANT. URATN? oo a) hs il RU at wenv eee ie bok, Mui, tango e 
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XV 


XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


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Chapter I 
IN THE BULRUSHES 


I 


Tue early life of the Mormon Moses is shrouded in the common- 
place. Behind the bare facts of his first thirty years one can 
imagine the stirrings of ambition, but there is little indication in 
the events of his youth and early manhood of the preeminence 
he was later to display. 

Brigham Young was born on June 1, 1801, in Whitingham, 
Windham County, Vermont. On that day, some of his disciples 
said later, the heavens were heard to resound slightly, and towards 
evening a star is said to have twinkled more irregularly than 
usual, indicating thereby that God was manifesting particular in- 
terest in this one of his many children. | 

Whitingham, Vermont, was not proud in later years of the 
only man from town who was heard of throughout the world. 
A writer of Whitingham history, in discussing the connection 
between Whitingham and Brigham Young, wrote: ‘We deem it 
of little consequence in what locality he was born; it is suffi- 
ciently humiliating that Whitingham was his birthplace.” Upon 
the occasion of the centennial celebration of the town in 1880 a 
native poet in the course of a lengthy historical poem recited these 
lines, which won the admiration of his audience for his wit and 
poetic ingenuity: 


“What hath she done in all these years, 
Old Whitingham, ’mid smiles and tears? 
Raised her Goodnows and her Starrs, 
Merchants and bankers, (bulls and bears), 
Reared the mayor of a city, 

And Brigham Young. Lord, what a pity! 

Pity ! not for our good mayor, 

But for that Mormon old soothsayer. .. . 
3 


4 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


I said one Brigham Young she’d raised, 
But soon she set him flying, 

Too many wives would set us crazed, 
One at a time is better.” 


Brigham Young was no more proud of his New England birth- 
place than it was of him. In a sermon addressed to his people 
many years later he said: “We are surrounded with circumstances 
that control us to a certain degree. My father and mother moved 
into the State of Vermont, and it happened that I was born there. 
I cannot help that. They might have stayed in Massachusetts, 
close to Boston. If they had, I should have been born there, and 
I could not have helped that. . . . I have no power to control 
such circumstances.” 

Brigham Young could have claimed credit as a son of the 
American Revolution. His father, John Young, enlisted in that 
war when he was a boy’ and served throughout the fighting, 
taking part in four engagements under George Washington. 
After the War he walked home, a distance of one hundred miles, 
carrying with him a cannon ball, which is still preserved in Utah. 
Brigham’s grandfather, Joseph Young, was a physician and sur- 
geon in the French and Indian War. After the Revolution John 
Young returned to his birthplace, Hopkinton, Massachusetts, 
where he took up farming. He married Nabby Howe, a girl 
from the neighborhood, and Brigham was their ninth child. 

When Brigham was three years old, the family moved to 
Sherburn in New York, and thereafter wandered about in the 
western part of New York State to different farms, from which 
they found great difficulty supporting themselves. It has been 
recorded that the Young family was the poorest family that ever 
came to Whitingham, Vermont, and that at the time of Brigham’s 
birth John Young did not own a cow, a horse, or any land, but 
gained a poor living as a basket maker. They settled on new land 
in western New York, and at an early age Brigham helped his 
father to clear the ground. Brigham Young said later that he 
spent eleven and a half days in school. In the Tabernacle he once 
remarked reminiscently to his followers: “In my youthful days, 
instead of going to school, I had to chop logs, to sow and plant, 
to plow in the midst of roots barefooted, and if I had on a pair 
of pants that would cover me I did pretty well.” The family 
poverty made thrift a necessity, and it is therefore not surprising 


IN THE BULRUSHES 5 


that in later years it became in Brigham Young’s mind the greatest 
of the virtues. He once said in a sermon: “If my mother and 
her grandmother got one silk dress, and they lived to a hundred 
years, it was all that they wanted. I think my grandmother’s 
silk dress came down to her children. She put her silk dress on 
when I went to see her. It was, I think, her wedding dress, and 
she had been married some seventy years.”’ As a result of this 
early influence, Brigham Young found it incomprehensible that 
his wives and his children, and the Mormon women in general, 
should want fine clothes in abundance, and he never tired of 
preaching against extravagance in his family and in his congrega- 
tion. From the pulpit he once told his people how clothes were 
obtained in his father’s family: ““The uncle of Brother Merrell, 
who now sits in the congregation, made me the first hat that my 
father ever bought for me; and I was then about eleven years of 
age. I did not go bareheaded previous to that time, neither did I 
call on my father to buy me a five-dollar hat every few months, as 
some of my boys do. My sisters would make me what was called 
a Jo Johnson cap for winter, and in summer I wore a straw hat 
which I frequently braided for myself. I learned to make bread, 
wash the dishes, milk the cows, and make butter; and can make 
butter, and can beat the most of the women in this community 
at housekeeping. Those are about all the advantages I gained in 
my youth. I know how to economize, for my father had to do 
it.” Brigham grew up to be one of those boys, instinctively 
capable with their hands, who can take apart a clock to fix it 
rather than to see what makes it go round, who can mend a 
chair without breaking it, and who, at an early age, are seen on 
farms efficiently helping their fathers to build hen-houses and 
pig pens. 

Brigham’s mother died when he was fourteen years old, and 
his discipline and direction in his youth were largely under the 
control of his father. Brigham once summed up his father’s 
disciplinary method: “It used to be a word and a blow, with him, 
but the blow came first.” John Young was apparently a stern 
moralist, for his son once said that when he was a boy he was 
not allowed to walk more than half-an-hour on Sunday, and it 
was to be understood that that half-hour was merely for exer- 
cise and not for pleasure. The effect of this stern morality 
was to turn Brigham Young towards innocent pleasure rather 
than away from it. “The proper and necessary gambols of 


6 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


youth having been denied to me,’’ he once told his congregation, 
“makes me want active exercise and amusement now. I had not 
a chance to dance, when I was young, and never heard the en- 
chanting tones of the violin, until I was eleven years of age; and 
then I thought I was on the highway to hell, if I suffered myself 
to linger and listen to it. I shall not subject my little chil- 
dren to such a course of unnatural training, but they shall go 
to the dance, study music, read novels, and do anything else that 
will tend to expand their frames, add fire to their spirits, improve 
their minds, and make them feel free and untrammeled in body 
and mind.” This attitude of Brigham Young’s caused him to 
encourage dancing and theatricals among the Mormons, and he 
built at Salt Lake City the first theater of any importance in the 
western United States. 

John Young, although he was stern, was not thoroughly un- 
pleasant about it, if we can believe Heber Kimball, Brigham’s 
best friend during his early life, and later his right-hand man in 
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a sermon 
one Sunday at Salt Lake City Heber Kimball became enthusiastic 
about Brigham’s father: “I cannot refer to any man of my ac- 
quaintance in my life,” he said, “as being so much like God as 
was Brother Brigham’s father. He was one of the liveliest and 
most cheerful men I ever saw, and one of the best of men. 
He used to come and see me and my wife Vilate almost every 
day, and would sit and talk with us, and sing, and pray, and 
jump, and do anything that was good to make us lively and happy, 
and we loved him. I loved him as well as I did my own father, 
and a great deal better, I believe. Thus you see that I am not 
partial in my feelings. If I see a tree bring forth better fruit 
than the tree I was brought forth from, I will like that tree the 
best.”” And then he quoted Christ to the effect, “Who is my 
mother, or my brethren?” 

In spite of this strict home training, Brigham Young admitted 
to his people that he was not entirely uncontaminated as a boy. 
“When I went into the world,” he once said, “I was addicted to 
swearing, through hearing others. I gave way to it, but it was 
easily overcome when my judgment and will decided to overcome 
it.” However, the habit sometimes took hold of him again in 
later life when he was in the pulpit. | 

In his early years Brigham Young showed that independence of \ 
the thought, morals, and customs of his environment which was. | 


} 


IN THE BULRUSHES 7 


.so characteristic of him in later life. When he was a young man, 
his father urged him to sign a temperance pledge. ‘“ ‘No, sir,’ 
said I, ‘if I sign the temperance pledge I feel that I'am bound, 
and I wish to do just right, without being bound to do it; I want 
my liberty ;’ and I have conceived from my youth up that I could 
have my liberty and independence just as much in doing right 
as I could in doing wrong. . . . Am [ not a free man, have not I 
the power to choose, is not my volition as free as the air I 
breathe? Certainly it is, just as much in doing right as in doing 
wrong ; consequently I wish to act upon my own volition, and do 
what I ought to do. I have lived a temperate life; I feel as though 
I could run through a troop and leap over a wall!” 

When he was twenty-three years old, Brigham Young married 
for the first time. The girl was Miriam Works, the daughter of 
Asa and Jerusha Works, of Aurelius, Cayuga County, New 
York, where Brigham had wandered in the course of his traveling 
occupations. For eighteen years during his youth and his 
manhood he lived in Aurelius, where, in the typical Yankee 
manner, he followed the manifold occupations of joiner, house 
painter, and glazier. Before this he had done odd jobs on 
farms and had set type on Ball’s Arithmetic, but after his 
marriage he settled down to the permanent business of painter, 
glazier, and carpenter, and he said in after years that 
he had “done many a hard day’s work for six bits a day.” 
Brigham Young was never ashamed of his early occupations, 
and at times he was proud of them. When he was Governor 
of the Territory of Utah, he received a letter from an Eng- 
lishman, addressed, “To His Excellency, Brigham Young, Gov- 
ernor of Utah, Indian Agent for the Territory, and President 
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Next time 
he met the gentleman, Brigham Young said, “I see you have 
given me my titles.’”’ “Yes, Governor, I think they are all there,” 
the writer answered. “No, sir,’ said Governor Young, “they are 
not ; you have left out a most important one, the first I was ever 
honestly entitled to in my life, and which I have done nothing 
to be cashiered of since.” “You mean the Generalship, Gov- 
ernor; beg pardon, allow me to add it, sir.” “No, no matter 
now, Squire, but next time you shall put it in by itself, without 
the others. It will read then right sprucely: ‘For His Excellency, 
Brigham Young, Painter and Glazier.’”” He was compelled to 
leave the painting business, so he said later, on account of the 


8 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


prevalent practice of adulteration: “Because I had either to be 
dishonest or quit; and I quit.” In order to support his wife and 
two daughters, Brigham Young supplemented his other trades by 
working on farms during harvest from sunrise to sunset for 
seventy-five cents a day. In winter he chopped wood for eighteen 
cents a cord and was compelled to take his pay in corn at seventy- 
five cents a bushel. In the spring of 1829 he removed to Mendon, 
Monroe County, New York, where his father lived, and it was 
there a year later that Brigham Young first saw a copy of the 
Book of Mormon. 


II 


During his youth and adolescence Brigham Young showed less 
interest in religion than most of his neighbors, friends, and 
family. With that independence of custom, which he maintained 
vigorously throughout life, he refused to be stampeded into faith, 
although he was geographically located in its very maelstrom. 
Mendon, New York, was about fifteen miles southeast of Roches- 
ter, and the entire surrounding country was one of the most 
fertile fields for the revival preachers in the United States of that 
period. The rest of Brigham’s family had been influenced suffi> 
“ciently by their environment to become earnest Methodists, but 
he, during his youth, held himself aloof from all religious sects’ 
becatse he could not find one that satisfied his own ideas of God} 
and His Heaven, or one that seemed sufficiently reasonable or 
attractive to change those ideas. He believed fervently in a god, 
in a heaven and in a hell, but he refused steadfastly to accept 
any one else’s interpretation of them. His father was devout, 
_and he urged Brigham to accept the family creed. John Young 
had named one of his sons Lorenzo Dow Young, after the famous 
evangelist of the time, and two of Brigham’s other brothers took 
an intense interest in religion. Brigham Young once said that 
his brother Joseph “was solemn and praying all the time,” and that 
he had not seen Joseph smile for a period of four years or laugh 
for two years. His brother Phineas had become an active Meth- 
odist, preaching and seeing visions, and he once practised healing 
by laying hands on a young woman. 
~ But in spite of his independence of institutional religion, God} 
‘and his emissaries had a great interest in Brigham Young when 
he was a boy, if we can believe the evidence of his brother? 


IN THE BULRUSHES 9 


Lorenzo Dow Young. In 1816, when he was nine years old and 
his brother Brigham was fifteen, Lorenzo dreamed a dream, 
which he recorded in detail more than fifty years later: “I thought 
I stood in an open, clear space of ground, and saw a plain, fine 
road, leading, at an angle of forty-five degrees, into the air, as 
far as I could see. JI heard a noise like a carriage in rapid motion, 
at what seemed the upper end of the road. In a moment it came 
in sight. It was drawn by a pair of beautiful white horses. The 
carriage and harness appeared brilliant with gold. The horses 
traveled with the speed of the wind. It was made manifest to 
me that the Saviour was in the carriage, and that it was driven 
by His servant. The carriage stopped near me, and the Saviour 
inquired where my brother Brigham was. After informing Him, 
He further inquired about my other brothers, and our father. 
After I had answered His inquiries, He stated that He wanted 
us all, but He especially wanted my brother Brigham. The team 
then turned right about, and returned on the road it had come.” 
It was at this time that young Brigham considered that if he had 
a pair of pants that would cover him he was doing pretty well, 
and he would have been surprised to learn that the Saviour was 
looking for him. 

When he was young, Brigham went to hear Lorenzo Dow, who 
had a great reputation as a hortatory preacher throughout the 
backwoods and the cities of this country, and whose fame had 
even spread to parts of England. Many years later Brigham 
Young told his own congregation about this experience in his 
youth: | 


“He was esteemed a very great man by the religious folks. I, 
although young in years and lacking experience, had thought a great 
many times that I would like to hear some man who could tell me 
something, when he opened the Bible, about the Son of God, the 
will of God, what the ancients did and received, saw and heard and 
knew pertaining to God and heaven. So I went to hear Lorenzo 
Dow. He stood up some of the time; he was in this position and in 
that position, and talked two or three hours, and when he got 
through I asked myself, ‘What have you learned from Lorenzo 
Dow?’ and my answer was, ‘Nothing, nothing but morals.’ He 
could tell the people they should not work on the Sabbath day; they 
should not lie, swear, steal, commit adultery, etc., but when he came 
to teaching the things of God he was as dark as midnight. And 
so I lived until, finally, I made a profession of religion. I thought 


10 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


to myself I would try to break off my sins and lead a better life 
and be as moral as I possibly could; for I was pretty sure I should 
not stay here always. Where I was going to I did not know, but 
I would like to be as good as I know how while here, rather than 
run the risk of being full of evil. I had heard a good deal about 
religion, and what a good nice place heaven was, and how good 
the Lord was, and I thought I would try to live a pretty good life. 
But when I reached the years of, I will say, courage, I think that 
is the best term, I would ask questions. 1 would say, ‘Elder,’ or 
Minister, ‘I read so and so in the Bible, how do you understand it?’ 
Then I would go and hear them preach on the divinity of the Son, 
and the character of the Father and the Holy Ghost and their 
divinity, and, I will say, the divinity of the soul of man; what we 
are here for, and various kindred topics. But after asking questions 
and going to hear them preach year after year, what did I learn? 
Nothing. I would as lief go into a swamp at midnight to learn how 
to paint a picture and then define its colors when there is neither 
moon nor stars visible and profound darkness prevails, as to go to 
the religious world to learn about God, heaven, hell or the faith of 
a Christian. But they can explain our duty as rational, moral 
beings, and that is good, excellent, as far as it goes.” ? 


_“ Only a new religion, made to order, would completely satisfy) 
such a mind. But, meanwhile, in his twenty-second year, | 
Brigham Young joined the Methodists. However, he was not. 
so active in their work as his brothers and his father were. He 
said that when priests had urged him to pray previously to 
this enrolment as a Methodist, “I had but one prevailing feel- 
ing in my mind: Lord, preserve me until I am old enough to 
have sound judgment, and a discreet-mind ripened upon a good 
solid foundation of common sense.” Before joining the Meth- 
odists he had at various times attended meetings in Mendon of 
the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, New Lights, Baptists, Freewill 
Baptists, Wesleyans, Reformed Methodists and Quakers, “and 
was more or less acquainted with almost every other ism.” 
Speaking before a meeting of his large family, Brigham Young 
once said: “I saw them get religion all around me. Men were 
rolling and bawling and thumping, but it had no effect on me. 
I wanted to know the truth that I might not be fooled. Children 
and young men got religion but I could not get it till I was 
twenty-three years old; and then, in order to prevent my being 
any more pestered about it I joined Methodism.” But, he said, 


1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, p. 197. 


IN THE BULRUSHES 11 


he was looking for something more than mere conformity: “TI felt 
in those days, after I had made a profession of religion, that if 
I could see the face of a Prophet, such as had lived on the earth 
in former times, a man that had revelations, to whom the heavens 
were opened, who knew God and His character, I would freely 
circumscribe the earth on my hands and knees; I thought that 
there was no hardship but what I would undergo, if I could see 
one person that knew what God is and where He is, what was His 
character, and what eternity was. ...’ This would appear to 
be a large order, but the opportunity of fulfilling it in some meas- 
ure was soon after offered to Brigham Young, when Samuel H. 
Smith, a brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., arrived in 
Brigham’s neighborhood, selling the Book of Mormon, which had 
just been published. 

Samuel Smith was the book agent for his religious brother, 
and in the course of his difficult task of distributing a new bible, 
he tried to sell a copy of it to the Rev. John P. Green, of Livonia, 
New York. The Rev. Mr. Green told him to come back in a few 
weeks after he and Mrs. Green had had a chance to inspect the 
new bible, and when Smith returned, Mrs. Green told him that 
her husband had decided not to buy. “It was impressed upon 
my mind,” Samuel Smith said some years later, “to leave the book 
with her.” But the fact that he was not selling his copies very 
fast and had many more than he could carry conveniently may 
have had something to do with this impression. He made Mrs. 
Green a present of the Book of Mormon, asking only that she 
and her husband would ask God for a sign that it was the truth. 
They did so and soon afterwards were baptized. Mrs. Green was 
a sister of Brigham Young. She showed the new bible to her 
brother Phineas, who took it home to study, and soon afterwards 
Phineas began to preach the new religion. He showed the book 
to his brother Brigham, who said later that he first saw it two 
or three weeks after it was published in 1830. 

Brigham was not so hasty as his brother Phineas. In a sermon 
he once told of his first reaction to this new religion: 


“The man that brought it to me, told me the same things: says he, 
‘This is the Gospel of salvation; a revelation the Lord has brought 
forth for the redemption of Israel; it is the Gospel; and according 
to Jesus Christ and his Apostles, you must be baptized for the re- 
mission of sins, or you will be damned.’ ‘Hold on,’ says I. The 
mantle of my traditions was over me, to that degree, and my pre- 


12 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


possessed feelings so interwoven with my nature, it was almost im- 
possible for me to see at all; though I had beheld all my life that 
the traditions of the people was all the religion they had, I had got 
a mantle for myself. Says I, ‘Wait a little while; what is the doc- 
trine of the book, and of the revelations the Lord has given? Let 
me apply my heart to them ;’ and after I had done this, I consid- 
ered it to be my right to know for myself, as much as any man 
on earth.” ? 


Brigham Young pondered over the Book of Mormon for two 
years. He claimed that he adopted towards this new dispensation 
the same skeptical attitude he had used towards all the other sects. 
“When ‘Mormonism’ was first presented to me,” he once said, “I 
had not seen one sect of religionists whose doctrines, from begin- 
ning to end, did not appear to me like the man’s masonry which 
he had in a box, and which he exhibited for a certain sum. He 
opened the main box from which he took another box; he unlocked 
that and slipped out another, then another, and another, and thus 
continued to take box out of box until he came to an exceedingly 
small piece of wood; he then said to the spectators, ‘That, gen- 
tlemen and ladies, is free masonry.’’’? But Mormonism was dif- 
ferent. The more he wrestled with it, the truer it seemed, and, 
so he says, he found it impossible to discern its errors (‘I found’ 
it was from eternity, passed through time, and into eternity again. 
When I discovered this, I said, ‘It is worthy of the notice of 
man.’ ‘Then I applied my heart to wisdom, and sought diligently 
for understanding.’ And eventually he came to this emphatic. 
conclusion: “I knew it was true, as well as I knew that I could 
see with my eyes, or feel by the touch of my fingers, or be sensible 
of the demonstration of any sense. Had not this been the case, 
I never would have embraced it to this day.” 

But there were other considerations that brought Brigham 
Young to his final conclusions. His financial condition was not 
good at the time, and he was undoubtedly shrewd enough, skeptical 
enough, and well enough acquainted with the progress of re- 
ligious speculation in his neighborhood to realize that as a busi- 
ness proposition this new religion might be worth looking into. 
. Another influence was that of his family and his friends. “His 
brother Phineas and his father were convinced of the truth pre- 
sented by the Book of Mormon, and his father was actually 


2 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. OI. 


IN THE BULRUSHES 13 


baptized into the new church a few days before Brigham was. 
Together with his brother Phineas and his best friend, Heber 
Kimball, Brigham went in a sleigh to visit a branch of the new 
church at Columbia, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. They 
spent a week investigating the religion in action. When he re- 
turned home to Mendon, Brigham Young had become convinced 
of the truth of Mormonism, and he started for Canada, where 
his brother Joseph, whose opinion on religious matters Brigham 
respected more than anybody’s except his own, was preaching 
Methodism. Joseph was four years older than Brigham, and he 
was considered the theological expert of the Young family; it 
is therefore natural that Brigham should consult him before doing 
anything about this new opportunity to embrace salvation. 

In March, 1832, the two brothers returned from Canada, and 
“on April 1 sth, when he was thirty years old, Brigham Young was 
baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- -day Saints. | 
“His father and his brother Joseph had both been baptized a few 
days before. Brigham Young said later of his baptism: “I recol- 
lect the Sunday morning on which I was baptized in my own little 
mill stream; I was ordained to the office of an Elder before my 
clothes were dry upon me.” In those days of the new church, 
© which was then two years old, elders were scarce, and any male 
convert who was not hopelessly incompetent in practical matters, 

was ordained an elder almost immediately after baptism. 

™ Exactly what were Brigham Young’s motives for joining the 
Mormons, it is impossible to determine. His financial condition 
had something to do with the decision, and his family had a great 
deal to do with it, but whatever his original motives, it was not 
long before he had thoroughly persuaded himself that it was the 
true religion of God. A few months after their baptism Brigham~— 
Young and his friend, Heber Kimball, went to Kirtland, Ohio, 
to meet the new Prophet of God, Joseph Smith, Jr. Brigham 
Young put in writing many years later the details of this memora- 
ble meeting : 


“We went to his father’s house and learned that he was in the 
woods chopping. We immediately repaired to the woods, where we 
found the Prophet, and two or three of his brothers, chopping and 
hauling wood. Here my joy was full at the privilege of shaking 
the hand of the Prophet of God, and receiving the sure testimony, 
by the spirit of prophecy, that he was all that any man could believe 
him to be as a true prophet. He was happy to see us and bid us 


14 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


welcome. We soon returned to his house, he accompanying us. 
In the evening a few of the brethren came in, and we conversed 
upon the things of the kingdom. He called upon me to pray; in 
my prayer I spoke in tongues. As soon as we arose from our 
knees, the brethren flocked around him, and asked his opinion con- 
cerning the gift of tongues that was upon me. He told them that 
it was the pure Adamic language. Some said to him they expected 
he would condemn the gift Brother Brigham had, but he said, me. 
it 1S or Goda 


Brigham Young had picked up this divine gift of tongues while 
on his visit to the branch of the new church in Pennsylvania and 
had used it effectively while preaching in New York. It con- 
sisted of a babble of incomprehensible sounds which were sup- 
posed to be the spirit of God resting upon the speaker, and these 
sounds were interpreted by another person in the congregation as 
soon as the speaker had uttered them. 

What Brigham Young thought of Joseph Smith, Jr., after this 
first meeting is impossible to discover, but Heber Kimball testified 
that he heard the Prophet Joseph say to those who stood around 
him, “That man,” pointing to Brigham Young, “will yet preside 
over this church.”’ But the Mormons have always been prone to 
ex post facto prophecy, and there were others, less friendly, who 
said that they heard Joseph say: “If Brigham Young ever be- 
comes President of the Church, he will lead it to hell.” There, 
are some Mormons who believe the latter prediction to have come 
as true as the former. 

Brigham Young returned home to Mendon, where he spent the 
following few months. His first wife died there of tubercu- 
losis on September 8, 1832. “In her last moments,” says a Mor- 
mon sketch of her, “the dying wife and mother clapped her hands 
and gave praise to the Lord, and called on Brother Kimball and 
all around her to also praise the Lord.’ She, too, had been 
baptized into the Mormon Church soon after her husband. Brig- 
ham Young and his two young daughters lived with Heber Kim- 
ball and his wife, Vilate, for a short time, and then both families 
migrated to Kirtland, Ohio, to join the new Prophet of God, 
Joseph Smith, Jr. 

It is now necessary to investigate how Joseph Smith became a 
Prophet of God and why. 


3 History of the Church, vol. 1, footnotes, pp. 295, 296, 297. 


Chapter II 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 


I 


One of the main issues in social and religious circles of the 
United States during the first half of the nineteenth century was 
whether Joseph Smith, Jr., was inspired by God or instigated by 
the Devil, whether he was divine or insane, and whether he was 
an honest-to-God Prophet, like some of his illustrious Biblical 
predecessors, or a swindling impostor, like some of his immediate 
contemporaries in the business of religion. To-day we are some- 
what inclined to believe with James Huneker, who asked in 
Steeplejack: “Query: What is the difference between a false or 
true prophet? Aren’t they both fakirs?’ But, during his life- 
time, and for many years thereafter, the divine authenticity of 
Joseph Smith, Jr., was considered of great import, and the con- 
troversy which his pretensions began still continues quietly, but 
steadily, in books and pamphlets. Now sufficient years have 
passed since his violent death in 1844 to allow us to consider 
what he was, and why, rather than whether or not he should have 
been that. 

In his study of Mohammed Carlyle wrote what can be applied 
with equal significance to our own American Prophet: “A false 
man found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick 
house! If he do not know and follow truly the properties of 
mortar, burnt clay and what else he works in, it is no house that 
he makes, but a rubbish-heap. It will not stand for twelve cen- 
turies, to lodge a hundred and eighty millions; it will fall straight- 
way. . . . This Mohammed, then, we will in no wise consider as 
an Inanity and Theatricality, a poor, conscious, ambitious 
schemer ; we cannot conceive him so.” The personality and the 
religion of Joseph Smith, Jr., of Vermont and points west, have 
not yet survived twelve centuries, but it is now only a few years 
short of a century since he published the Book of Mormon, and 


16 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


there are in this country and in Europe some 450,000 men, 
women, and children who think of him solemnly as one of the 
few elect of God, and who profess to believe that he died that 
they may live in the future. He has even been considered impor- 
tant enough to create schisms among his own followers, and for 
a religious leader that is almost insurance of immortality. 

Many legends, with more or less basis of fact, have grown 
around the personality of Joseph Smith, but it is significant that 
no miraculous events surrounded the birth and infancy of this 
latter-day prophet. Even his mother, who had a taste for the 
marvelous and the visionary, and who wrote a book about her 
illustrious offspring and his forebears, offered no instances of 
unusual manifestations at the time of his arrival. In this, as in 
more important respects, he differed from some of the prophets 
and messiahs of old. 

Joseph Smith, Jr., was born at Sharon, Vermont, two days 
before Christmas in 1805. He came into an ultra-poor family, 
where there were already three children older than he, and where 
there were destined to be six more before he was a man. When 
he came to write the Book of Mormon—with the help of God— 
Joseph Smith accounted himself a direct descendant of the orig- 
inal Joseph, of Israel. The Second Book of Nephi of the Book 
of Mormon contains the prediction that a descendant of the Jew- 
ish Joseph will one day arise, who will also be named Joseph, 
and who in the latter days will save the world by his revelations 
of the will of the Lord. It is also predicted therein that a Moses 
will arise, and undoubtedly God had Brigham Young in mind, 
but, unfortunately, his parents named him Brigham before they 
knew that the Lord had chosen him, 

Whether or not Joseph Smith, Jr., was a direct descendant of 
the ancient Hebrew family of Egypt, is an open question, but his 
immediate ancestors were equally interesting. His father, Joseph 
Smith, Sen., was born in Topsfield, Massachusetts, on July 12, 
1771, where the family had resided since 1638, when Robert 
Smith, an English Puritan, settled there. Numerous attempts 
have been made to prove that Joseph Smith was. descended from 
depraved, degenerate, and disreputable persons, but it has been 
established that several of his early American ancestors were 
considered gentlemen by their contemporaries and took active part 
in the government of their communities, as well as in the War 
of the Revolution. On his mother’s side, from which we can 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 17 


trace more direct influence than from that of his father, Joseph 
Smith’s ancestors were sturdy Scotch Covenanters, Puritans and 
Crusaders, of uncompromising principles, who helped to found 
colonies in this country, and who fought in the colonial wars and 
the Revolutionary War. 

There are interesting details of the religious idiosyncrasies of 
many of Joseph Smith’s ancestors. His paternal grandfather, 
Asahel Smith, was subject to fits, and he was familiarly known 
as “Crook-Necked Smith,” because of the inability to keep one 
shoulder as high as the others A contemporary said that his 
religious opinions were so free, “that some regarded his senti- 
ments as more distorted than his neck.’”’ Solomon Mack, Joseph 
Smith’s maternal grandfather, wrote a short but pregnant narra- 
tive of his experiences, according to which he was at various 
times a farmer, sailor, soldier, sutler, privateer, proprietor of 
ocean vessels, manufacturer of saltpeter, landowner, and beggar. 
It is said that A Narrative of the Life of Solomon Mack was 
written and published by the author for the furtherance of the 
last-named occupation, for he hawked it as a Yankee beggar’s 
chap-book, so that he might have something to gain sympathy for 
his mendicancy. If we can believe this narrative, Solomon Mack 
met with a series of most unfortunate accidents: he broke his 
wrists, was knocked down by a passing trooper’s horse, fell on 
the water-wheel of a sawmill, was shipwrecked several times, and 
was once knocked down by a powerful tree. But his most inter- 
esting ailment from our point of view was his fits and trances: 
“T afterwards was taken with a fit,” he wrote, “when traveling, 
with an ax under my arm, on Winchester hills, the face of the 
land -was covered with ice. I was senseless from one until five 
p.m. when I came to myself I had my ax still under my arm, I 
was all covered with blood and much cut & bruised. When I came 
to my senses I could not tell where I had been, nor where I was 
going; but by good luck I went right and arrived at the first 
house, was under the Doctor’s care all winter.” At the age of 
seventy-six Solomon Mack began to think of God and his own 
salvation, because that winter he was “taken with Rheumatism 
and confined me all winter in the most extreme pain.’”’ From his 
bed of pain the old man saw bright lights on dark nights and 
was certain that he heard voices calling him. ‘These visitations 
made him so fearful for his salvation that, ‘I literally watered 
my pillow with tears.’ These verses from Matthew passed 


18 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


through his mind again and again: “Come unto me all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my 
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in 
heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is 
easy and my burden is light.” Solomon Mack gave this pathetic 
description of his visitations: 


“About midnight I saw a light about a foot from my face as 
bright as fire, the doors were all shut and no one stirring in the 
house. I thought by this that I had but a few moments to live, and 
O! what distress I was in; I prayed that the Lord would have mercy 
on my soul and deliver me from this horrible pit of sin... . 

“Another night soon after I saw another light as bright as the 
first, at a small distance from my face, and I thought I had but 
a few moments to live, and not sleeping nights, and reading, all day 
I was in misery; well you may think I was in distress, soul and 
body. At another time, in the dead of the night I was called by 
my christian name, I arise up and answer to my name. The doors. 
all being shut and the house still, I thought the Lord called and I 
had but a moment to live. Oh, what a vile wretch I had been... . 
I called upon the Lord the greatest part of the winter and towards 
spring it was reviving and light shined into my soul.” 


He also records that towards spring the Lord miraculously ap- 
peared to be with him, for his rheumatism was cured; perhaps, 
however, the absence of damp weather was a contributory cause. 
Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph’s mother, had a brother, Uncle 
Jason, who believed many of the things Joseph later expressed. 
Jason Smith was a member of the sect known as Seekers, and as 
such he believed that by prayer and faith a man could receive the 
same gifts which God gave to the ancient Apostles. He also 
believed, what Joseph Smith claimed a few years later, that the 
Scriptures are not complete. Lucy Smith’s sister, Joseph’s Aunt 
Lovisa, was miraculously healed of a two years’ illness by a 
vision from God, and she preached to the neighbors about it. 
Both Joseph Smith, Sen., and his wife dreamed in religious 
parables, the purport of which almost invariably proved to be 
that there was no true church representative of Jesus Christ and 
the ancient Apostles. This seems to have been a fixed idea with 
them, which they handed on to their son Joseph, who, with a 
practical ability which his parents lacked, started the machinery 
in motion for the establishment of the one true church, the lack 





Lucy SMITH 





A YANKEE MOHAMMED 19 


of which his parents had bemoaned so much, both sleeping and 
waking. About three years before the birth of the Prophet, Lucy 
Smith became very ill; it was decided that she was suffering from 
tuberculosis and could not possibly live. Her husband, she wrote 
in her book of reminiscences, came into her room one day, and, 
taking her thin, pale hand, said: 


“Oh, Lucy! my wife! my wife! you must die! The doctors have 
given you up; and all say you cannot live.’ . .. During this night 
I made a solemn covenant with God, that, if he would let me live, 
I would endeavor to serve him according to the best of my abilities. 
Shortly after this, I heard a voice say to me, ‘Seek, and ye shall 
find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ In a few moments 
my mother came in, and, looking upon me, she said, ‘Lucy, you are 
better.’ ” 


When Lucy Smith recovered, she went to preachers and deacons 
for spiritual aid, but she found them practically useless : 


“T therefore determined to examine my Bible, and, taking Jesus 
and his disciples for my guide, to endeavor to obtain from God that 
which man could neither give nor take away. . . . At length I con- 
sidered it my duty to be baptized, and, finding a minister who was 
willing to baptize me, and leave me free in regard to joining any 
religious denomination, I stepped forward and yielded obedience to 
this ordinance; after which I continued to read the Bible as for- 
merly, until my eldest son had attained his twenty-second year.” 


Joseph Smith, Jr., as we shall see, went through a similar 
religious experience in his youth. Meanwhile, the financial strug- 
gles of the Smith family were acute. Joseph Smith, Sen., labored 
continually without success; some of his neighbors have testified 
that he did not labor continuously enough. But the struggle to 
maintain a family of ten children was too great for a man who 
was too much of a mystic to be a successful farmer, and too much 
of a farmer to be a successful mystic. Lucy Smith was a vibrant, 
vigorous personality, and she seems to have exhibited considera- 
ble practical ability in the face of difficulties. In the various 
removals from farm to farm, she had the responsibility of de- 
vising ways and means for transporting her large family and their 
meager effects. She also at one time increased the family earn- 
ings by her talent for painting oil-cloth covers for tables and 
lamp-stands. Joseph’s father, when he did get a little money, 


20 | BRIGHAM YOUNG 


invested it in a speculation to send ginseng to China, where great 
spiritual and physical healing properties are attributed to it. But 
he was defrauded of his money by his partner. 

When Joseph Smith was ten years old, his father moved the 
family to Palmyra, Wayne County, New York, where he bought 
and cleared a farm, which he lost because of his inability to pay 
the last instalment on it. He then moved to a smaller farm in 
the neighboring village of Manchester. At one time the Smith 
family is said to have kept a beer and cake shop in Palmyra, 
where the future prophet peddled both those commodities to the 
neighbors. Speaking of Joseph’s father and mother, a Utah resi- 
dent once said: “She and her husband looked like a pair of splen- 
did gypsies.” 


IT 


There is an attempt upon the part of some of his followers 
with literary ambitions to make out that the Prophet Joseph 
Smith, Jr., as a boy, was a good, true, brave, and upright story- 
book hero, but it is impossible, after reading the large body of 
inaccurate fact and anecdote brought forth by both his friends 
and enemies, to get rid of the impression that he was more of a 
Huckleberry Finn. The Mormons would do better to accept this 
picture of him, which wins him our sympathy by virtue of his 
roguery. However, it outrages the moral sensibilities of stern 
religious enthusiasts to admit that Huckleberry Finn could have 
grown up into a Prophet of God. 

A choice example of the attitude of his followers towards their 
Prophet as a boy is found in Elder Edward Stevenson’s Reminis- 
cences of Joseph, the Prophet: 


“At about the age of eight years, he passed through an ordeal 
which gave remarkable evidence of heroic fortitude and indomitable 
power of will, under intense bodily suffering. After recovering from 
a severe typhus fever, a fever sore affected his leg and threatened 
him with the loss of the limb. Under these circumstances, a con- 
sultation of physicians was held, and after making an incision eight 
inches in length, and examining the bone, they decided that, if his 
life was to be saved, amputation of the member was absolutely 
necessary. This operation, however, was so strongly opposed by 
both parents and son that the doctors finally concluded to remove 
the affected parts of the bone. Accordingly, they called for a strong 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED Bh 


cord to bind the lad, and were intending to give him a stimulant; 
but to all this our young hero most decidedly objected, saying, ‘I 
will not touch one particle of liquor, neither will I be tied down; but 
I will have my father sit on the bed and hold me in his arms, and 
then I will do whatever is necessary to have the bone taken out.’ 
By drilling into the bone on each side of the part affected, three 
pieces of bone were extracted, the removal being made with a pair 
of forceps. The manhood and will power of this noble youth of 
eight years, under so trying an ordeal, foreshadowed the story of 
his life—a life fraught with matchless heroism, under all manner 
of persecution, trials, imprisonments, hardships and finally martyr- 
dom.” 


It is a pity for his reputation among the strait-laced members of 
the community with whom he was compelled to associate, that as 
a young man the Prophet did not continue to practise the absti- 
nence from liquor with which he is so heroically credited as a boy 
of eight, for, if we can believe the testimony of his neighbors, 
the Prophet was frequently seen about Palmyra drunk. 

Joseph Smith received few educational opportunities. He 
knew how to read and to write imperfectly, and he understood 
elementary arithmetic. Among the sayings of the Prophet which 
have been carefully preserved is this: “I am a rough stone. The 
sound of the hammer and chisel was never heard on me until the 
Lord took me in hand. I desire the learning and wisdom of 
heaven alone.”’ Two books are alleged to have been favorites of 
the boy Joseph Smith. One of these was the Memoirs of Stephen 
Burroughs, a traveling preacher who was a cause of much trouble 
in New England because he preached for a living without having 
been regularly ordained a clergyman. Jf Smith read Burroughs’s 
confessions, as is not at all unlikely, for there was much talk of 
Burroughs in the neighborhood, he may possibly have got from 
them the germ of his idea, or the incentive of his inspiration, to 
enter the field of practical religion; however, if this was his 
inspiration, Joseph Smith improved upon his master, for Bur- 
roughs only set himself up as an independent itinerant preacher 
without the proper seminary credentials, while Smith became a 
Prophet with full credentials from God. The other book in 
which Joseph Smith is said to have been interested when he was 
a boy was the autobiography of Captain Kidd, and his favorite 
lines from this work, which he repeated often to himself and 
sometimes recited aloud were: 


22 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“My name was Robert Kidd, 
As I sailed, as I sailed 
And most wickedly I did, 
God’s laws I did forbid, 

As I sailed, as I sailed.” 


Joseph’s enemies say that this was his favorite part of Captain 
Kidd’s book, but it is likely that he found more to interest him 
in the accounts of buried treasure, for Joseph’s father was con- 
vinced that money could be found in the ground by aid of a 
divining rod or a sprig of witch hazel. Much of the time of the 
Smith boys, according to their neighbors’ testimony, given after 
they became notorious, was spent in searching for money. 
Joseph, Jr., was said to be particularly adept at money-digging 
with the aid of a peep-stone, which he placed in his hat, but 
there is no record of any money actually having been found by 
the Smiths. William Stafford, one of their neighbors, gave 
this testimony at the request of an anti-Mormon writer, concern- 
ing the Smith family’s money-digging activities: 


“T have heard them tell marvelous tales, respecting the discoveries 
they had made in their peculiar occupation of money-digging. They 
would say, for instance, that in such a place, in such a hill, on a 
certain man’s farm, there were deposited keys, barrels and hogs- 
heads of coined silver and gold—bars of gold, golden images, brass 
kettles filled with gold and silver—gold candlesticks, swords, etc., 
etc. They would say, also, that nearly all the hills in this part of 
New York, were thrown up by human hands, and in them were 
large caves, which Joseph, Jr., could see, by placing a stone of sin- 
gular appearance in his hat in such a manner as to exclude all 
light; at which time they pretended he could see all things within 
and under the earth,—that he could see within the above-mentioned 
caves, large gold bars and silver plates—that he could also discover 
the spirits in whose charge these treasures were, clothed in ancient 
dress. At certain times these treasures could be obtained very 
easily ; at others, the obtaining of them was difficult. The facility of 
approaching them depended in a great measure on the state of the 
moon. New moon and good Friday, I believe, were regarded as 
the most favorable times for obtaining these treasures.” 


Another neighbor has testified that Joseph never did any of the 
actual digging, confining himself to the spiritual and temporal 
direction of the work. When no treasure was found, the young 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 23 


man had to think of reasons, and he usually maintained that an 
evil spirit had removed it to deeper ground. On one occasion 
Joseph is said to have insisted that in order to get the buried 
treasure he must sacrifice the blood of a black sheep. There was 
a fine black wether in the flock of one of the neighbors, which 
he had been fattening for market. “Fresh meat,’ wrote one anti- 
Mormon writer, “was a rarity at his father’s home.” Late at 
night the blood of the black wether was shed in a circle, and the 
digging began. But, according to Smith, the Devil interfered, 
and the treasure was not found. It is said, however, that the 
Smith family had mutton for dinner several days thereafter. 

The most important events of Joseph Smith’s youth were his 
religious experiences. When he was fifteen years old, there was 
stirring religious excitement in his neighborhood. Revivals were 
flourishing in that section of the country; priest fought with 
priest for converts, and feverish, if not permanent, religious inter- 
est was exhibited by the ignorant population. People changed 
their religions every week, with the arrival of new preachers. 
Joseph’s father and his mother, his brothers, Hyrum and Samuel, 
and his sister, Sophronia, who were older than he, all became 
Presbyterians together. Joseph was very much disturbed by this 
religious excitement, and the result of it on his adolescent mind 
was perplexity and melancholy worry for his salvation. A few 
years before he had been a rough boy, with battered hat, ragged 
clothes, and mussed yellow hair, joining in Yankee practical 
jokes with other farm boys, as he ran barefooted about Palmyra 
and Manchester. But now vague forebodings of the future were 
beginning to disturb his placid mind. He has left an interesting 
record in writing of his first religious experience at the age of 
fifteen : 


“While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties, caused by 
the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading 
the Epistle of James, first chapter, and fifth verse, which reads, ‘If 
any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth unto all 
men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.’... 
At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in 
darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, 
ask of God. I at length came to the determination to ask of God, 
concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and 
would give liberally and not upbraid, I might venture. So, in ac- 
cordance with this my determination to ask of God, I retired to 


24 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beau- 
tiful clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. 
It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for 
amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray 
vocally.” 


According to their autobiographies, the woods have always 
played a prominent part in the development of religious enthusi- 
asts. The impressive quality of solitude in the midst of mys- 
terious life have frequently turned mystic minds to thoughts of 
God, and, especially in the period of adolescence, from thoughts 
to visions is an easy transition. The beautiful clear spring day 
may also have had something to do with Joseph Smith’s state of 
mind, for psychologists have established that in spring when 
young men’s fancies do not turn to thoughts of love, they usually 
find relief in religion. But, whatever the complex mental circum- 
stances, for Joseph Smith the fact remained that after he had 
looked about to make sure that he was alone and had kneeled in 
prayer, he “was seized upon by some power which entirely over- 
came me, and had such astonishing influence over me as to bind 
my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered 
around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed 
to sudden destruction.”’ He prayed fervently to God, and then: 
“Just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light 
exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which 
descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested 
upon me, I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy 
all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake 
unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other, 
THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, HEAR HIM.’ 

As soon as he could talk, Joseph asked the two glorious person- 
ages which of all the religious sects in the United States he should 
join, and he was told that they were all wrong and all corrupt. The 
Son of God, for it was none other, also told Joseph Smith many 
things which he could not repeat when he wrote his account of 
this vision, for God had not yet released them for publication. 
“When I came to myself again,’ Joseph wrote, “I found myself 
laying on my back looking up into heaven.”’* He finally recovered 

strength enough to stagger home, for his vision had left him 

1 The account of this vision is taken from the History of the Church of 


Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Period I; History of Joseph Smith, the 
Prophet, by Himself, vol. 1. 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 25 


limp, and when he entered the house, he leaned against the fire- 
place, dazed. His mother anxiously asked what was the trouble, 
and he answered: “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough 
off.” And then he added, “I have learned for myself that Pres- 
byterianism is not true.” 

After his vision Joseph began to argue with visiting clergy- 
men, but he was always reviled, and whenever he dared to tell of 
the vision, he was informed that visions were things of the past, 
that there were enough of them in the Bible, and that those would 
do very well for the present day. To refute this argument, Orson 
Pratt, one of Joseph Smith’s main adherents in later years, argued 
that angels were often in the habit of visiting the earth. Two 
angels, he pointed out, had taken dinner with Abraham; Jacob 
had wrestled with one all of a night; several stayed with Lot and 
his wife at their house; Moses, Joshua, Manoah, Gideon, David, 
Daniel, Zechariah, Joseph, the husband of Mary, the Shepherds, 
the Apostles, Philip, Paul, and Cornelius had all been visited by 
angels, and Orson Pratt saw no reason therefore why two angels 
should not visit Joseph Smith, Jr., in the year 1820 at the town 
of Manchester, Ontario County, New York. It does not matter 
so much whether or not angels actually visited the boy Joseph 
Smith as it does that by the time he had grown to man’s estate 
he had thoroughly convinced himself that his visions were reali- 
ties. 

After this first stirring vision, with a charming sense of irre- 
sponsibility, Joseph Smith continued his everyday life of odd jobs, 
money-digging, loafing, and dreaming, until September 21, 1823. 
Meanwhile, according to his own later admission, he had yielded 
to various temptations, “to the gratification of many appetites 
offensive in the sight of God,’ was the way he put it. Although 
he does not specify in detail what these sins were, he tells us that 
they were grievous enough to weigh heavily on his conscience, and 
on the night of September 21, 1823, when he went to bed, he 
prayed fervently for forgiveness. A light suddenly filled the small 
bedroom, until ‘it was lighter than at noonday.”’ A personage 
appeared beside Joseph’s bed, and the curious thing about him, 
the thing which first attracted the young man’s attention, was 
that he was “standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the 
floor.” ‘‘He had on a loose robe of most exquisite white- 
ness . . .; his hands were naked, and his arms also, a little above 
the wrist; so, also, were his feet naked, as were his legs, a little 


26 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


above the ankles. . His head and neck were all bare. I could dis- 
cover that he had no other clothing on but this robe, as it was 
open, so that I could see into his bosom. Not only was his robe 
exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond de- 
scription, and his countenance truly like lightning.” 

The visitor called Joseph by name and introduced himself. He 
was, he said, a messenger from God, and his name was Moroni. 
“He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, 
giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and 
the source from whence they sprang. . . . Also, that there were 
two stones in silver bows—and these stones, fastened to a breast- 
plate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim—de- 
posited with the plates; and the possession of these stones were 
what constituted Seers in ancient or former times, and that God 
had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.” 
Then Moroni quoted Scripture, with slight variations from the 
common Bible text, perhaps to show that he was an authority. 
He explained in detail to the eighteen-year-old boy lying in bed 
before him how the prophecies of Isaiah and others would be 
fulfilled. “Again, he told me that when I got those plates of 
which he had spoken, for the time that they should be obtained 
was not yet fulfilled, I should not show them to any person, 
neither the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim, only to 
those to whom I should be commanded to show them; if I did, 
I should be destroyed.” While the angel was talking, Joseph 
was visited with a visionary picture of the place where the plates 
were buried, so that he should know it when he finally saw it. 

After the angel had finished speaking, the light in the room 
began to concentrate around his figure, until everything in the 
room was very dark, except his blinding whiteness. ‘When in- 
stantly I saw,” wrote Joseph Smith, “as it were, a conduit open 
right up into heaven, and he ascended up till he entirely disap- 
peared, and the room was left as it had been before this heavenly 
light had made its appearance.” Joseph lay in bed, “musing . . . 
and marveling greatly at what had been told me by this extraordi- 
nary, messenger.” Suddenly the room began to grow light again, 
and Moroni returned. “He commenced, and again related the 
very same things which he had done at this first visit, without 
the least variation.” But this time he added a few predictions of 
famines and plagues which would eventually descend upon the 
earth if its inhabitants did not watch out, and again he left for 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED Dl 


heaven. <A third time he returned and repeated what he had said 
twice before, adding that Satan would tempt Joseph in every way 
in order to persuade him to get possession of the valuable plates 
before the time was ripe, and Moroni warned Joseph not to yield. 
The cock crew, and day began to break. 

Many years later Joseph Smith gave his followers this infalli- 
ble talisman for discovering whether an angel is a real angel of 
God or an emissary of the Devil: 


“When a messenger comes saying he has a message from God, 
offer him your hand, and request him to shake hands with you. If 
he be an angel, he will do so, and you will feel his hand. If he be 
the spirit of a just man made perfect, he will come in his glory; for 
that is the only way he can appear. Ask him to shake hands with 
you, but he will not move, because it is contrary to the order of 
heaven for a just man to deceive; but he will still deliver his mes- 
sage. If it be the devil as an angel of light, when you ask him to 
shake hands, he will offer you his hand, and you will not feel any- 
thing: you may therefore detect him.” 


A short time afterwards when Joseph was working with his 
father in the fields he suddenly fainted. While unconscious he 
saw the same angel, who delivered his heavenly message a fourth 
time, and added that Joseph might tell it to his father if he 
wished. Joseph told his father everything, and the son wrote that 
Joseph Smith, Sen., was sure that the messages were from God, 
and he urged that young Joseph proceed at once to where the 
plates were buried. This was conveniently located near the Smith 
farmhouse, between the towns of Palmyra and Manchester, and 
was known as the Hill of Cumorah. After removing some earth 
and the large stone which covered the hiding-place, Joseph found 
the plates in a golden box, with the Urim and Thummim lying 
next to them. As he was about to take them away, God’s mes- 
senger suddenly appeared and told him that the time was not yet 
come, and that it would not come until four years after date. He 
made an appointment with Joseph to meet him every year at 
Cumorah Hill until the end of four years. These appointments 
with the angel Joseph Smith kept sedulously, and at each of the 
annual conferences he was told what God had in mind for the 
peoples of the earth in general and for Joseph Smith, Jr., in 
particular. 

This is the version of the incident which Joseph Smith gave in 


28 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the history of it which he wrote for his church, but the neighbors 
said that he told them a different story, according to which he 
was knocked down twice when he first went to get the plates. 
When he inquired why he could not have them, he saw a man 
standing over the spot where they lay, who seemed to Joseph to 
be a Spaniard with a long beard extending to his breast; his 





Jos—EPH SMITH, JR. AND AN ANGEL oF Gop INSPECTING THE 
GOLDEN PLATES OF THE BooK oF MORMON AT 
CuMORAH HI 


From a contemporary woodcut 


throat was cut from ear to ear, and the blood was streaming 
down. This weird character told Joseph that he could not get 
the plates alone but must get them in the company of his wife, 
whom he had not yet met. Joseph’s father also told this story 
and added concerning the gold bible, “I weighed it, and it weighed 
thirty pounds.” 

Meanwhile, the Smith family was finding it ever more difficult 
to earn a living, and the young Prophet was compelled to continue 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 29 


at menial labor until such time as God should see fit to relieve 
him. One of his jobs was digging in search of a silver mine at 
Harmony, Pennsylvania; for one Josiah Stoal. Joseph main- 
tained that Stoal had hired him for this job and informed him 
of the existence of the silver mine, but the neighbors said that 
Josiah Stoal first heard of the silver mine from Joseph Smith, 
who had promised to show the old gentleman its exact location. 

While he was in Harmony, Pennsylvania, when he was twenty 
years old, Joseph met Emma Hale, the daughter of a prosperous 
farmer, Isaac Hale. Isaac Hale later described the Prophet as 
“a careless young man—not very well educated, and very saucy 
and insolent to his father.” Joseph Smith, Sen., was also em- 
ployed digging for the mythical silver mine. Joseph Smith visited 
the Hale house often and finally asked Isaac Hale for permission 
to marry his daughter. Isaac Hale refused, giving as his reasons 
that Joseph was a stranger, and that he followed a business which 
Isaac Hale could by no means approve. Soon afterwards Joseph 
and Emma went secretly into the State of New York and were 
married. 

The time finally arrived for unearthing the golden plates, and 
on September 22, 1827, Joseph Smith met the angel of God at 
Cumorah Hill, and they were delivered into his hands, to be kept 
until the angel called for them. On the night when the golden 
plates of the Book of Mormon were delivered to Joseph Smith, 
Brigham Young, who lived about fifteen miles away, saw strange 
lights in the heavens, although it was a dark night with no moon. 
He described the phenomenon many years later: “I gazed at it in 
company with my wife. The light was perfectly clear and re- 
mained several hours. It formed into men as if there were great 
armies in the West; and I then saw in the northwest armies of 
men come up. They would march to the South West and then 
go out of sight. It was a very remarkable occurrence. It passed 
on, and continued perhaps about two hours.” 

Persecution and efforts, prompted by the Devil, to get the 
golden plates are said to have begun immediately after Joseph 
received them, and he was forced to take his possession in a 
bean bag to Harmony, Pennsylvania. But his father-in-law testi- 
fied that the trip was made for Emma’s clothes and for financial 
aid. 

There is another story of the origin of the golden plates. 
Peter Ingersoll, one of Joseph Smith’s friends at Palmyra, testi- 





Jr. 


EN PLATES AND THE 
SMITH 
From a contemporary woodcut 


Urim AND THUMMIM TO JOSEPH 


THe ANGEL Moronr DELIVERING THE GOLD 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 31 


fied after his friend had become famous: ‘One day he came, and 
greeted me with a joyful countenance. Upon asking the cause 
of his unusual happiness, he replied in the following language: 
‘As I was passing, yesterday across the woods, after a heavy 
shower of rain, I found, in a hollow, some beautiful white sand, 
that had been washed up by the water. I took off my frock, 
and tied up several quarts of it, and then went home. On my 
entering the house, I found the family at the table eating dinner. 
They were all anxious to know the contents of my frock. At 
that moment, I happened to think of what I had heard about a 
history found in Canada, called the golden Bible; so I very gravely 
told them it was the golden Bible. To my surprise, they were 
credulous enough to believe what I said. Accordingly, I told them 
that I had received a commandment to let no one see it, for, says 
I, no man can see it with the naked eye and live. However, I 
offered to take out the book and show it to them, but they refused 
to see it, and left the room.’ ‘Now,’ said Joe, ‘I have got the 
damned fools fixed, and will carry out the fun.’ ”’ ” 

It is impossible to determine exactly whether the golden plates 
of the Book of Mormon were an imaginative delusion of Joseph 
Smith’s, or whether they were a piece of conscious fakery insti- 
tuted at first for fun and later developed for their financial 
possibilities. His later acts seem to favor the opinion that he 
had succeeded in deluding himself, however much he may have 
been interested at first in deceiving other people. 


Til 


The work of translating the golden plates of ancient history 
and prophecy into the printed pages of the Book of Mormon 
began soon after those plates were delivered into Joseph Smith’s 
care, and in this work Joseph was assisted by a neighbor, Martin 
Harris. 

Martin Harris owned a valuable farm and, according to his 
wife, was worth about $10,000 before he met Joseph Smith and 
became convinced of that young man’s divine inspiration. Harris 
had passed through several religious metamorphoses. He was 
first an orthodox Quaker, then a Universalist, next a Restora- 
tioner, afterwards a Baptist, then a Presbyterian, and finally a 
Mormon; his connection with that church was once severed, but 


2 Mormonism Unveiled, by E. D. Howe, p. 235. 


32 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


he finally returned to it a few years before he died. In the course 
of an affidavit concerning her knowledge of her husband, Mrs. 
Martin Harris said: 


“At different times while I lived with him, he has whipped, kicked, 
and turned me out of the house. About a year previous to the 
report being raised that Smith had found gold plates, he became 
very intimate with the Smith family, and said he believed Joseph 
could see in his stone any thing he wished. After this he apparently 
became very sanguine in his belief, and frequently said he would 
have no one in his house that did not believe in Mormonism; and 
because I would not give credit to the report he made about the 
gold plates, he became more austere towards me. In one of his fits 
of rage he struck me with the butt end of a whip which I think 
had been used for driving oxen, and was about the size of my 
thumb, and three or four feet long. . . . His main complaint against 
me was that I was always trying to hinder his making money.” 


If we can believe his wife, it seems that Martin Harris at first 
regarded the gold bible as a great financial scheme, and, as such, 
he was willing to invest enough money to pay for its publication. 
“One day, while at Peter Harris’s house,’ said Mrs. Martin 
Harris, “I told him he had better leave the company of the Smiths, 
as their religion was false; to which he replied, ‘If you would let 
me alone, I could make money by it.’”’ Though he undoubtedly 
considered the financial possibilities in a new bible, Martin Harris 
believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, for Harris was 
superstitious enough to accept what he did not know how to 
doubt. However, Joseph Smith probably made promises to his 
prospective financial backer other than the general one in the 
Mormon religion, of the Promised Land, for Harris was long 
under the impression that the distribution of the Book of Mor- 
mon would make him both rich and powerful. Buoyed up by 
these hopes and his own fund of superstition, Martin Harris fre- 
quently told the neighbors in Palmyra that he had conversed with 
Jesus Christ, various angels, and even, on one occasion, the 
Devil. Christ, he said, was the handsomest man he ever saw, and 
the Devil “looks very much like a jackass, with very short, smooth 
hair, similar to that of a mouse.” 

Joseph Smith and Martin Harris set to work to translate the 
golden plates of the Book of Mormon, by means of the Urim 
and Thummim, or spiritual spectacles, which were found with 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED a 


them. Martin Harris never saw the plates, for he was separated 
from the Prophet by a curtain when he took down Joseph Smith’s 
words. They were working at the house of Isaac Hale, Joseph 
Smith’s father-in-law, in Harmony, Pennsylvania. When pressed 
by his father-in-law, who was supporting him, for a sight of the 
golden plates, Joseph Smith replied that his commands from 
heaven were that the first to see the plates must be a male child 
who would be born to his wife Emma. Emma conceived and 
bore a child, but he died before the plates could be shown to him. 

Meanwhile, Martin Harris had begged to be allowed to take as 
much of the manuscript as had been finished to show his doubt- 
ing wife and thereby convince her once for all that there were 
plates, and that there would be a book. Joseph Smith inquired 
twice of the Lord whether he should entrust the manuscript to 
Martin Harris to take to Palmyra, and the Lord answered in the 
negative. But Martin Harris was insistent and probably threat- 
ened to withdraw his financial support. Joseph asked God a 
third time, at the request of Martin Harris, and apparently this 
time the necessity for conciliating the majority stockholder 
dawned upon the Lord, for He changed His mind and answered 
in the affirmative. God said that Martin Harris could take the 
manuscript, if he promised to show it to no one except his wife, 
his brother, Preserved Harris, his father, and his mother, and 
his wife’s sister, Mrs. Cobb. But what man could resist the 
temptation to show a new Bible? Joseph Smith always main- 
tained that it was because Martin Harris violated this solemn 
covenant that the calamity which ensued was visited upon them. 
Martin Harris took the 116 pages of manuscript which had been 
completed and left for Palmyra. Joseph Smith awaited his return 
to Harmony impatiently, and when, after three weeks, he did 
not return, Joseph hurried to Palmyra. Martin met Joseph at 
the house of Joseph’s father, and Martin reluctantly admitted to 
the Prophet that he had lost the manuscript. Joseph’s mother, 
in her book, gave this description of the scene: 


“Oh, my God!’ said Joseph, clinching his hands. ‘AII is lost! 
all is lost! What shall I do? I have sinned—it is I who tempted 
the wrath of God. I should have been satisfied with the first 
answer which I received from the Lord; for he told me that it was 
not safe to let the writings go out of my possession.’ He wept and 
groaned and walked the floor continually. At length he told Martin 
to go back and search again. | 


34 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“ ‘No,’ said Martin, ‘it is all in vain; for I have ripped open beds 
and pillows; and I know it is not there... 2” 

“T besought him not to mourn so,” wrote Mrs. Smith, “for per- 
haps the Lord would forgive him, after a short season of humiliation 
and repentance. But what could I say to comfort him, when he saw 
all the family in the same situation of mind as himself ; for sobs 
and groans, and the most bitter lamentations filled the house. How- 
ever, Joseph was more distressed than the rest, as he better under- 
stood the consequences of disobedience. And he continued, pacing 
back and forth, meantime weeping and grieving, until about sunset, 
when, by persuasion, he took a little nourishment. 

“The next morning he set out for home. We parted with heavy 
hearts, for it now appeared that all which we had so fondly antici- 
pated, and which had been the source of so much secret gratification, 
had in a moment fled, and fled for ever.” 


But Mother Smith was right, and her consoling words came 
true. Before long the Lord gave Joseph Smith, Jr., a revelation 
in Harmony, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, in which He 
told him to take up from page 117 and not to worry about the 
116 lost pages, which had been stolen by his enemies to confound 
him. Smith and Harris both believed that Mrs. Martin Harris 
had stolen the 116 pages, and that she had burned them, but, 
tantalizingly, she refused to admit or to deny the accusation. Her 
only answer to all her husband’s threats and entreaties was, “Joe 
Smith may peek for it.” It might be thought that since he still 
had the golden plates, and since he still had the Urim and Thum- 
mim, Joseph Smith could begin at the beginning and retranslate 
the lost pages, but he was afraid that after he had published the 
Book of Mormon the 116 pages would be made public, and it 
would be discovered that they were not exactly the same as those 
contained in the Book of Mormon. However, the Lord con- 
veniently solved the difficulty by commanding Joseph Smith to 
begin his bible at page 117. 

Sobs and groans and bitter lamentations filled the Smith house- 
hold when its members heard of the loss of the manuscript, for 
they were depending upon Joseph’s theological enterprise to im- 
prove the family fortunes. Mother Smith concludes her account 
of the sad episode with this miracle: 


“It seemed as though Martin Harris, for his transgression, suf- 
fered temporally as well as spiritually. The same day on which the 
foregoing circumstance took place, a dense fog spread itself over 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 35 


his fields, and blighted his wheat while in the blow, so that he lost 
about two-thirds of his crop, whilst those fields which lay only on 
the opposite side of the road, received no injury whatever. 

“I well remember that day of darkness, both within and without. 
To us, at least, the heavens seemed clothed with blackness, and the 
earth shrouded with gloom.” 8 


~When Joseph Smith returned to his family in Pennsylvania 
after his disheartening loss, he did not begin translating immedi- 
ately. He was discouraged; he felt as Thomas Carlyle must have 
felt when the maid burned the French Revolution. It required 
another insistent revelation to Joseph Smith direct from God to 
persuade him to take up once more the important prophetic work 
he had begun. Meanwhile, he labored with his hands on a small 
farm to support his family. When he finally obeyed the Lord 
and began to translate the golden plates again, he was as- 
sisted by Oliver Cowdery. Cowdery had been a schoolmaster 
and a blacksmith, and in the course of his travels in New York 
State he met Joseph Smith’s father, who told him of the gold 
bible. Cowdery visited Smith at Harmony, Pennsylvania, and 
two days after his arrival Joseph and his new amanuensis began 
to translate. Soon afterwards Joseph received by revelation from 
the Lord an appointment for Oliver Cowdery, by which Cowdery 
was instructed to act always as Joseph Smith’s assistant. How- 
ever, differences of opinion arose. Cowdery’s job, according to 
the Lord, via Joseph Smith, was to translate the Prophet’s trans- 
lations into literate and grammatical English, but he seems to 
have had higher theological aspirations. There was one little 
difference, for example, about John the Apostle: whether he had 
died, or whether he had tarried on earth until the second coming 
of Jesus. Joseph Smith used his spiritual spectacles, the Urim 
and Thummim, to settle the matter, and the answer was that 
he had tarried, which was what Joseph Smith had contended from 
the first. Another difference of opinion arose concerning baptism 
for the remission of sins. Smith and Cowdery went into the 
woods to inquire of the Lord, and a messenger appeared from 


8 Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and His Progenitors 
for Many Generations by Lucy Smith, Mother of the Prophet. This book is 
said to have been written by another from the material supplied by Mrs. Smith. 
It was called in by Brigham Young some years after its publication because of 
the information it contained about the Prophet’s early life. It was later revised 
and reissued. First edition, Liverpool, 1853. 


36 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


heaven and told Joseph to baptize Oliver and Oliver to baptize 
Joseph. He also commanded them to “lay hands on’ each other 
and ordain each other into the Aaronic Priesthood. The mes- 
senger soon proved to be no other than John the Baptist, who, 
since he knew more about baptism than any one else, had been 
sent from heaven to enlighten them on the subject. He said that 
“he acted under the direction of Peter, James, and John, who 
held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchisedek,” which priest- 
hood, the highest of all, would be conferred on Smith and Cow- 
dery in due time. When they came up out of the water after 
baptism, they felt spiritual improvement: “We were filled,’ wrote 
Joseph Smith, “with the Holy Ghost, and rejoiced in the God of 
our salvation.” They immediately began to prophesy many things 
to each other, but what these were they did not say. 

Soon afterwards Smith and Cowdery began to make converts, 
but only among members of the Smith family. Joseph’s older 
brother, Hyrum, and his younger brother, Samuel Harrison 
Smith, visited him, and after special revelation from the Lord 
for their benefit, were convinced of their brother’s divine in- 
spiration, and thereafter became his enthusiastic followers. At 
this period revelation upon revelation came to Joseph Smith, and 
sometimes jointly to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, from 
God. Each revelation began with the sentence, “A great and 
marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of 
men.” It was as if God, through his agent, Joseph Smith, Jr., 
were planning an advertising campaign and had hit upon that 
phrase as an advance slogan. 

In June of 1829 Smith and Cowdery went to Fayette, Seneca 
County, New York, where they were invited by Peter Whitmer 
and his sons to board with them free of charge. One of the 
Whitmer boys also offered to help them in their writing. Grad- 
ually the divine translation was finished. The actual writing 
appears to have taken about seven months, from December, 1827, 
to February, 1828, from April 12, 1828, to June 14, 1828, and 
from April 7, 1829, to June 11, 1829. Taking the first edition 
of 588 pages as a guide, this allows about two or three pages each 
day. In order to insure privacy during the proceedings, a blanket, 
which served as a portiére, was stretched across the Whitmer 
family living-room, to shelter the translator and the golden plates 
from the eyes of any who might call while the work was in 
progress. Sometimes Emma Smith, sometimes Oliver Cowdery, 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 37 


and sometimes Christian Whitmer acted as scribe to Joseph’s 
dictation. David Whitmer in an interview published in the Chi- 
cago Tribune of December 15, 1885, gave this description of the 
method of work: 


“After prayer Smith would sit on one side of a table and the 
amanuenses, in turn as they became tired, on the other. Those 
present and not actively engaged in the work seated themselves 
around the room and then the work began. After affixing the magi- 
cal spectacles to his eyes, Smith would take the plates and translate 
the characters one ata time. The graven characters would appear in 
succession to the seer, and directly under the character, when viewed 
through the glasses, would be the translation in English. Sometimes 
the character would be a single word, and frequently an entire 
-sentence. In translating the characters Smith, who was illiterate 
and but little versed in Biblical lore, was ofttimes compelled to spell 
the words out, not knowing the correct pronunciation, and Mr. 
Whitmer recalls the fact that at that time Smith did not even know 
that Jerusalem was a walled city. Cowdery, however, being a 
school-teacher, rendered invaluable aid in pronouncing hard words 
and giving their proper definition.” 


Joseph Smith once said that he could see the printed characters 
which he translated into the Book of Mormon just as well with 
his eyes shut as with his eyes open. Whenever he was asked 
in what language the characters were engraved, Joseph always 
replied. “Reformed Egyptian.” 


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Dyce 03g Gat? HAKL AD 1% 3ISI- Bt Stra-P oe 


B sM-W Souw £33 Pap At = OEE Aim Fe as CO)-U4H ntty, 
Wt Ayn 8 eGo met OOO GF TSENG E4 - 22H - ISDH! — Ag din 





FACSIMILE SPECIMEN SUBMITTED BY JOSEPH SMITH AS “CARACTORS” 
ENGRAVED ON THE GOLDEN PLATES 


At last Joseph Smith and his earthly collaborators finished 
their translation; they secured the copyright of the book in the 


38 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


name of “Joseph Smith, Jun., author and proprietor,” and made 
arrangements for printing five thousand copies for three thou- 
sand dollars. Just at this time Joseph Smith received an interest- 
ing revelation which was called, “A Commandment of God and 
not of man, to Martin Harris, given, Manchester, New York, 
March, 1830, by Him who is Fternal.’”’ The first part of the 
revelation takes many awful paragraphs to establish the eternity 
of God and the potency of his punishments. Then it proceeds: 


“Wherefore I command you [Martin Harris] to repent, and keep 
the commandments which you have received by the hand of my 
servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., in my name; 

“And it is by my almighty power that you have received them; 

“Therefore | command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you 
by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and 
your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you 
know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not!... 

“And again, I command thee that thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 
bor’s wife; nor seek thy neighbor’s life. 

“And again, I command thee that thou shalt not covet thine own 
property, but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon, 
which contains the truth and the word of God. ... 

“Behold, this is a great and the last commandment which I shall 
give unto you concerning this matter; for this shall suffice for thy 
daily walk, even unto the end of thy life.” — 


God said, in effect, that He did not want to have to speak of it 
again, and then He concluded with this command: “Pay the debt 
thou hast contracted with the printer. Release thyself from 
bondage.” * And Martin Harris repented of his sins, ceased to 
covet his own property, and pledged $3,000 to Joseph Smith for 
the expense of printing the Book of Mormon. 

The manuscript was guarded carefully. So that there might 
be no danger of loss by fire, Oliver Cowdery took only a few 
pages each day to the printer’s shop, and on these trips to the 
printer, he was accompanied by a bodyguard. It seems that no 
dependence at all could be placed on God to protect His sacred 
work. Meanwhile, the people of Palmyra organized a mass meet- 
ing and pledged themselves before it was printed not to buy the 
Book of Mormon after it was published. This caused the printer 

*The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 


Saints. Section 19. That book contains all the published revelations from God — 
to Joseph Smith, Jr. 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 39 


to cease work until he was assured that he would receive the rest 
of his money. Martin Harris, in spite of the strict warning from 
God, had delayed raising all the money, but he was trying to sell 
his farm in order to pay the printer. Hyrum Smith, Joseph’s 
older brother, became impatient, and he suggested that the money 
be raised in another way. David Whitmer, who was then closely 
associated with the enterprise, wrote later: 


“Brother Hyrum said it had been suggested to him that some of 
the brethren might go to Toronto, Canada, and sell the copy-right of 
the Book of Mormon for considerable money: and he persuaded 
Joseph to inquire of the Lord about it. Joseph concluded to do so. 
He had not yet given up the stone. Joseph looked into the hat in 
which he placed the stone, and received a revelation that some of 
the brethren should go to Toronto, Canada, and that they would 
sell the copy-right of the Book of Mormon. Hiram Page and Oliver 
Cowdery went to Toronto on this mission, but they failed entirely 
to sell the copy-right, returning without any money. ... Well, we 
were all in great trouble; and we asked Joseph how it was that he 
had received a revelation from the Lord for some brethren to go to 
Toronto and sell the copy-right, and the brethren had utterly failed 
in their undertaking. Joseph did not know how it was, so he in- 
quired of the Lord about it, and behold the following revelation 
came through the stone: “Some revelations are of God: some revela- 
tions are of man: and some revelations are of the devil” So we see 
that the revelation to go to Toronto and sell the copy-right was not 
of God, but was of the devil or the heart of man.’ ® 


It was the will of the Lord that the money must be raised by 
Martin Harris, and He would have it no other way. | 

Daniel Hendrix, who read proof on the Book of Mormon, 
testified that the penmanship of the manuscript was good, but that 
the grammar and spelling were hopelessly inaccurate, and that 
punctuation and paragraphs were entirely missing. 

Many impartial non-Mormons have wondered what became of 
Joseph Smith’s golden plates of the Book of Mormon after he 
had translated them into English. Joseph Smith always main- 
tained that the same angel of God who had given them to him 
conveniently took them back again, and in a sermon delivered 
many years later in Utah Brigham Young gave this vivid de- 
scription of the scene of the return of the golden tablets, which 
seems to rival the magic phenomena of the Arabian Nights: 


5 Address to Believers in Christ, by David Whitmer, pp. 30-31. 


40 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry 
them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver says that when 
Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into 
a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room. He says he 
did not think, at the time, whether they had the light of the sun or 
artificial light; but that it was just as light as day. They laid the 
plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under 
this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and 
there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many 
waggon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the 
walls. The first time they went there the sword of Laban hung 
upon the wall; but when they went again it had been taken down and 
laid upon the table across the gold plates; it was unsheathed, and on 
it was written these words: “This sword will never be sheathed again 
until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God 
and his Christ.’ ”’ ® 


Brigham Young concluded his sermon with this assurance of his 
faith in the incident: “I tell you this as coming not only from 
Oliver Cowdery, but others who were familiar with it, and who 
understood it just as well as we understand coming to this meet- 
ing, enjoying the day, and by and by we separate and go away, 
forgetting most of what is said, but remembering some things.” 

Towards the end of their work Joseph Smith and his assistant 
translators discovered a notation on the golden plates that they 
were to be shown to three witnesses, who would thereafter testify 
before the world that they had seen real, gold plates. It seemed 
to Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer that they 
had earned this privilege, and they requested Smith to ask God if 
He was willing that they should be The Three Witnesses. Ac- 
cordingly, Joseph Smith received a revelation in June, 1829, that 
if Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer would 
remain faithful they would see the golden plates, the Urim and 
Thummim, and the Sword of Laban. The second paragraph of 
this revelation is significant. “And it is,’ said God, “by your 
faith that you shall obtain a view of them, even by that faith which 
was had by the prophets of old.” It is a question whether the 
three men were to accept the plates by faith or to see the plates as 
a reward for their faith. 

A few days later the four retired to the woods to seek fulfil- 
ment of this revelation. They prayed but received no answer. 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 19, p. 38. 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 4] 


They prayed again, separately and in rotation, but received no 
answer. Then Martin Harris suggested that he withdraw, for 
he felt that his profane presence was the obstacle. He withdrew, 
and the remaining three prayed again, “and,” wrote Smith, “had 
not been many minutes engaged in prayer, when presently we 
beheld a light above us in the air, of exceeding brightness; and 
behold, an angel stood before us. In his hands he held the plates 
which we had been praying for these to have a view of. He 
turned over the leaves one by one, so that we could see them, 
and discern the engravings thereon distinctly.” They heard a 
voice “from out the bright light above us,” saying: “These plates 
have been revealed by the power of God. The translation of 
them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear 
record of what you now see and hear.”’ 

Joseph Smith then went to seek Martin Harris, whom he found 
at some distance, “fervently engaged in prayer.” He asked Joseph 
to join him, and after they had prayed together they received the 
same vision and the same message as the others had just received. 
Mormons have explained that because Martin Harris lost part of 
the translation he was not forgiven without an extra prayer, and 
that his pride and self-will in delaying to pay the expenses of 
printing the Book of Mormon were responsible for the delay in 
the spiritual manifestation to him. According to his mother, 
Joseph Smith returned from the woods very happy that he had 
witnesses besides himself to bear the burden before the world of 
the authenticity of the golden plates. 

Another version of this memorable scene has it that Joseph 
Smith opened a box which he said contained the golden plates 
and showed it to his three witnesses. They could see nothing in 
the box and said, “Brother Joseph, we do not see the plates.” 
The Prophet flew into a rage. “O ye of little faith!” he said, 
“how long will God bear with this wicked and perverse genera- 
tion? Down on your knees, brethren, every one of you—and pray 
God for the forgiveness of your sins, and for a holy and living 
faith which cometh down from heaven.” The disciples dropped 
to their knees and began to pray fervently. For two hours this 
continued with fanatic earnestness, and at the end of that time 
they were fully persuaded that they saw golden plates. 

David Whitmer in an interview in the Kingston, Missouri, 
Times, December 27, 1887, thus described the scene of the 
plates: 


42 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“The plates] were shown to us in this way—Joseph, Oliver and 
I were sitting on a log, when we were overshadowed by a light more 
glorious than that of the sun. In the midst of this light, but a few 
feet from us, appeared a table, upon which were many golden plates. 
. . . L saw them as plain as I see you now, and distinctly heard the 
voice of the Lord declaiming that the records of the plates of the 
‘Book of Mormon’ were translated by the gift and the power of 
God.” | 


Professor Woodbridge Riley has contended that the vision of 
The Three Witnesses is “that form of hallucination which may 
occur either in the normal state, or be induced in the state of 
light hypnosis. . . . The ideas and interests which were upper- 
most in the mind were projected outwards. MHarris had received 
the first ‘transcription of the gold plates; Whitmer had been 
saturated with notices of ancient engravings ; Cowdery, for weeks 
at a time, had listened to the sound of a voice translating the 
record of the Nephites. When that voice was again heard in the 
grove, when the four sought ‘by fervent and humble prayer to 
have a view of the plates,’ there is little wonder that there arose 
a psychic mirage, complete in every detail. Furthermore, the 
rotation in praying, the failure of the first two attempts, the 
repeated workings of the prophet over doubting Harris, but serve 
to bring out the additional incentives to the hypnotic hallucina- 
tion. Repetition, steady attention, absence of mistrust, self-sur- 
render to the will of the principal,—all the requisites are present, 
not as formulz but as facts.” * 

Martin Harris was questioned by a lawyer in Palmyra concern- 
ing his view of the golden plates: 


“Did you see the plates, and the engravings on them with your 
bodily eyes? WHarris replied, ‘Yes, I saw them with my eyes— 
they were shown unto me by the power of God and not of man.’ 
‘But did you see them with your natural,—your bodily eyes, just as 
you see this pencil-case in my hand? Now say no or yes to this.’ 
Harris replied, ‘Why I did not see them as I do that pencil-case, yet 
I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as 
I see any thing around me, though at the time they were covered 
over with a cloth.’” 


7 The Founder of Mormonism, A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr. 
by I. Woodbridge Riley, pp. 227-228. 






“OLIVER COWDERYS hy 
£ io FX & 


ER. MARTIN VHARRIS, 






YE ARE MY WITNESSES 


THE THREE WITNESSES 


a t 
= a 
mi hd = 


a Sneret 
al Sis agra 
py eae -; be: oy 


i 


¥ 





A YANKEE MOHAMMED 43 


The simplicity of Martin Harris throughout his connection with 
the Book of Mormon frequently resembled that of Bottom, the 
Weaver. He was never sure just how he had seen the plates, or 
whether he had seen plates at all, but he was sure that he had 
seen something. Concerning this testimony of The Three Wit- 
nesses, Mark Twain wrote in Roughing It: 


“Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can 
come anywhere. in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for 
me, when a man tells me that he has ‘seen the engravings which are 
upon the plates,’ and not only that, but an angel was there at the 
time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I 
am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever 
heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the 
name of the angel, or his nationality either.” 


In every edition of the Book of Mormon there is printed this 
testimonial : 


Tue TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES 


Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto 
whom this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the 
Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which con- 
tain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also 
of the Lamanites, his brethren, and also of the people of Jared, 
which came from the tower of which hath been spoken; and we 
also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of 
God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of 
a surety, that the work is true. And we also testify that we have 
seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been 
shewn unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we 
declare with words of soberness, that an Angel of God came 
down from ‘heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that 
we beheld and saw the plates, and_the engravings thereon; and 
we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are 
true; and it is marvellous in our eyes: Nevertheless, the voice of 
the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; where- 
fore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testi- 
mony of these things—-And we know that if we are faithful in 
Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be 
found spotless before the judgment seat of Christ, and shall dwell 


44 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Fa- 
ther, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is. one God. 
Amen. 
OLIVER CowDERY, 
Davip WHITMER, 
Martin Harris. 


The Testimony of Three Witnesses was followed by a testi- 
monial of eight additional witnesses. ‘This was in conformity 
with the policy of the early Mormons to make everything as it 
was in the early days of the Christian religion. The total num- 
ber of witnesses, eleven, is the same number as those who bore 
witness to the original Christian miracles. The eight additional 
witnesses saw the plates without any special spiritual manifesta- 
tions on the part of God, and they had the plates in their hands, 
according to their testimony: 


AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF E1GHT WITNESSES 


Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto 
whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the Author and 
Proprietor of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath 
been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of 
the leaves as the said Smith has translated, we did handle with our 
hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has 
the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And 
this we bear record, with words of soberness, that the said Smith 
has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a 
surety, that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have 
spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto 
the world that which we have seen: and we lie not, God bearing 
witness of it. 

CHRISTIAN WHITMER, 
JAcop WHITMER, 
PETER WHITMER, JR., 
JoHN WHITMER, 
Hiram PAGE, 

JosEpH SmiTH, SEN., 
Hyrum SMITH, 
SAMUEL H. SmitH$ 


8 The Testimony of Three Witnesses and The Testimony of Eight Wit- 
nesses are quoted from The Book of Mormon, first edition, 1830. 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 45 


Concerning this testimonial, which Professor Riley said “has the 
suspicious uniformity of a patent medicine testimonial,’ Mark 
Twain wrote: 


“And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, 
be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that 
they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but 
‘hefted’ them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and 
at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.” 


Although all three of the main witnesses to the authenticity of 
the golden plates were either expelled from the Church or left it 
in anger a few years after their testimony was published, each of 
them retained his superstitious belief in the Book of Mormon’s 
divine origin, and each of them maintained that belief on his 
deathbed. Newspapers awaited the deaths of these men eagerly, 
in the hope that as they were dying they would confess to fraud, 
and many attempts were made after their apostacy to persuade 
them to reveal the truth. All such attempts were unsuccessful. 
Oliver Cowdery’s last words, given to David Whitmer, were: 
“Brother David, be true to your testimony of the Book of Mor- 
mon.” That, at least, is what Brother David said. Martin 
Harris was rebaptized into the Mormon Church, and his last 
words when he died at the age of ninety-two were: “Book! 
Book! Book!’ This is taken by the Mormons to refer to the 
Book of Mormon, for Martin Harris had never been a great 
reader. David Whitmer’s deathbed scene was described in the 
Richmond, Missouri, Democrat. He called his family and his 
doctor to his bedside and said: “Dr. Buchanan, I want you to say 
whether or not I am in my right mind, before giving my dying 
testimony.” The doctor answered, “Yes, you are in your right 
mind.” Then the old man said: “I want to say to you all, the 
Bible and the record of the Nephites 7s true.’ On his tombstone 
there is this inscription: “The Record of the Jews and the Record 
of the Nephites are one. Truth is eternal.” The Record of the 
Nephites is another name for the Book of Mormon. 

The Mormons regard these dying testimonials with great self- 
satisfaction, but they are not difficult to explain. Men super- 
stitious enough once to have accepted Joseph Smith sincerely as 
a Prophet of God would, with the prospect of death and its 
uncertain after-effects before them, prefer to maintain their early 


46 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


faith rather than kick away from under them all props and hurl 
from their perplexed and sick minds all safe comforts. It is 
also a source of great satisfaction to the Mormons that during 
the many years between their break with the Church and their 
deaths these men never exposed the Church. But this too is not 
difficult to explain. To expose the Church would have meant to 
expose themselves, and it is not likely that men would ever again 
trust a man who admitted that he had helped to create a fantastic 
speculation in the image of God. To denounce the Church was 
to denounce themselves in certain terms as men without honor, 
who would stoop to any deception for a living, and therefore, if 
they had consciously deceived others, it was wisdom in them to 
say nothing about their past in the hope that men would forget 
it in the light of their future. However, it is more likely that 
these men had nothing to expose, for their extreme simplicity had 
aided in their own sincere deception. : 

Orson Pratt, who, as we have seen, sprang so valiantly to the 
defense of the Prophet’s angels, also came to the defense in the 
matter of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. In his Divine 
Authenticity of the Book of Mormon he admitted that none but 
the Prophet’s eleven hand-picked witnesses had seen the golden 
plates, but, he pointed out, the tablets which Moses brought down 
from Sinai were kept in the secret places of the Holy of Holies, 
“and none but the high priest had the privilege of going in there, 
and he only once a year.”” When some complained that no one 
had seen the manuscripts of the Book of Mormon except Smith’s 
friends, Orson Pratt asked his opponents to bring forth one living 
witness “that has seen even one of the original manuscripts of 
the books of the Bible.” And Pratt’s opponents believed in the 
divine origin of the Bible. When Christ arose from the dead, 
Pratt pointed out, he did not show himself publicly but only to 
a few of his best friends, and they were instructed to testify to 
the rest of the world concerning his resurrection. In the matter 
of the golden plates of the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith had 
only followed his eminent example. Because of his powers of 
thought and literary ability, Orson Pratt was considered the 
philosopher of Mormonism. 

Of course, even if Orson Pratt proved the Bible to be a snare 
and a delusion, he would not thereby have established the divine 
authenticity of the Book of Mormon, but his rhetorical questions 
gave his contemporaries many uncomfortable moments, for they 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 47 


could never admit to themselves that the Bible was a chronicle 
rather than a revelation, and Pratt’s comparisons seemed to have 
elements of truth which they dared not admit. Almost every- 
body between the years 1830 and 1850 took the Bible literally, 
but not quite so literally as the Mormons, who, as we shall see, 
wished to revive some of the practices as well as the precepts of 
the children of Israel and the contemporaries of Christ. 


IV 


Much time and thought have been spent in disproving the 
divine origin of the Book of Mormon from external evidence. 
The merits or demerits of the book itself have been somewhat 
obscured in the frantic effort to prove it either a sacred work or 
a wicked fraud. Even assuming that Joseph Smith saw an angel 
of God who showed him golden tablets with a golden clasp and 
gave him the spiritual spectacles whereby to translate his pos- 
session, the Book of Mormon must still be condemned because 
in it there is none of what William James called that “true record 
of the inner experiences of great-souled persons wrestling with 
the crises of their fate.” If the Book of Mormon was inspired 
by God, it was His second-rate work. 

The Book of Mormon is the story of the wanderings of three’ 
ancient peoples. One of them, the Jaredites, came directly from 
the Tower of Babel, and the other two came originally from 
Jerusalem or thereabouts. These people, after prolonged suffer- 
ings, dissensions, and wars, finally arrived on the American con- 
tinent. The two tribes from Jerusalem were headed by one Lehi, 
who led his people forth about the year 600 B.c. He died in the 
wilderness and bequeathed the leadership of the expedition to his 
youngest son, Nephi. But the other brothers disputed their 
father’s will, and the family split into the Nephites, advocates of 
the youngest son, and the Lamanites, followers of the eldest son, 
Laman. There was constant war between these two peoples, and 
finally the wicked Lamanites wiped out their righteous brothers, 
after both tribes had arrived in America. In 420 a.p. the whole 
American continent was in possession of the Lamanites, from 
whom, according to the Book of Mormon, the American Indians 
are descended. It was the task of Joseph Smith, Jr., to redeem 
the continent, which, by the way, is the Promised Land, for the 
righteous Nephites. Thus the Book of Mormon has an unhappy 


48 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


ending, but it offers the promise that everybody will live happily 
forever after the time of the proper redemption. 

Before they were annihilated the Nephites had kept accounts 
on metal tablets of their wanderings and their wars. Mormon, 
who was the last of his race, and who lived about 400 a.D., was 
commanded by God to take care of all the plates deposited by 
his ancestors from the time of the first Lehi. He was also ap- 
pointed by God to be editor of these plates, and it was the abridg- 
ment of them which he made that Joseph Smith, Jr., found 
deposited in the Hill of Cumorah near Palmyra, N. Y. Mormon 
died before his work was finished, but his son, Moroni, carried 
it on and eventually completed it. 

When he was asked the meaning of the name Mormon, Joseph 
Smith was not content to let it rest as a proper name. He said 
that it was derived from the English “more,’ and the Egyptian 
“mon,” the latter meaning good, and that therefore Mormon 
means “more good.” Smith’s complete philological explanation 
was: “We say from the Saxon good; the Dane god; the Goth 
goda; the German gut; the Dutch goed; the Latin bonus; the 
Greek kalos; the Hebrew tob; and the Egyptian mon. Hence, 
with the addition of more, or the contraction mor, we have the 
word Mormon, which means, literally, more good.” One of 
Joseph Smith’s minor weaknesses was a pretension to philological 
erudition. 

In the first edition the Book of Mormon took 588 closely 
printed pages to tell its simple story. The book is padded with 
material from the Old Testament and the New Testament and 
with predictions of ruin and accounts of famine. It is one of 
the dullest books in world literature, and, according to one writer 
who was a faithful Mormon for many years, even many devout 
Mormons have been unable to read it through consecutively. 
Mark Twain said of it: “It is chloroform in print. If Joseph) 
Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake 
while he did it was, at any rate.” Sir Richard Burton, who took: 
‘a great interest in the Mormons, and who spent some time among 
them in Salt Lake City, was unsuccessful in his attempts to read 
all of the Book of Mormon: 


“Surely,” he wrote, “there never was a book so thoroughly dull 
and heavy: it is monotonous as a sage-prairie. Though not liable 
to be terrified by dry or hard reading, I was, it is only fair to own, 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED | 49 


unable to turn over more than a few chapters at a time, and my 
conviction is that very few are so highly gifted that they have been 
able to read it through at a heat. In Mormonism it now holds the 
same locus as the Bible in the more ignorant Roman Catholic coun- 
tries, where religious reading is chiefly restricted to the Breviary, to 
tales of miracles, and to legends of Saints Ursula and Bridget... . 
In one point it has done something. America, like Africa, is a conti- 
nent of the future; the Book of Mormon has created for it an 
historical and miraculous past.” ® 


The Book of Mormon contains no new theological ideas, and 
very few at all which it has not taken from the Bible. The 
whole book is an attempt upon the part of the author to assert 
his sense of spiritual superiority to all other sects and creeds, 
‘their leaders and protagonists. . As such it was admirably suited” 
to be the handbook of a new religion. The good men are 
constantly warning the bad men to look to the light before it 
goes out and they are swallowed up in awful darkness. ‘Some 
of this sentiment is borrowed from the hortatory books of the 
Old Testament, and especially Isaiah, to whom Joseph Smith 
owed more than he acknowledged. However, the sentiment also 
springs from the desire of the author to establish his own pre- 
eminence and that of his bible. To do so he frequently finds it 
necessary to insist on the thorough inadequacy of all other at- 
tempts at spirituality, except those of the writers of the Old 
Testament, and those of Jesus Christ and his immediate disciples. 
Of these two sources of theology the Book of Mormon is very 
respectful, and it borrows from them extensively. One writer 
has estimated that there are 298 New Testament quotations in 
426 pages of the first edition of the Book of Mormon, and another 
writer found that one-eighteenth of the book was borrowed from 
the Bible, mainly from the books of Isaiah and Matthew. It did 
“not seem so to Joseph Smith, but to us it may seem strangely 
' anachronistic that Nephi, who was said to have lived six hundred 
_ years before the Christian Era, should speak familiarly of Jesus 
_ and John. The Book of Mormon also makes the ancient prophet, 
Nephi, speak in the language of the King James version of the 
Bible more than two thousand years before King James was born. 
_ Benjamin, another Book of Mormon prophet, predicts in the book 
_ of Mosiah that a man will be born who will work mighty miracles, 


9 The City of the Saints, by Sir Richard F. Burton, pp. 313-314. 


50 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


suffer temptations and persecutions, that his name will be Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, and that his mother’s name will be Mary. 
Eventually, said Benjamin, this man would be crucified, and he 
would rise again from the dead. Jared’s brother actually saw 
Jesus Christ on Mount Shelem many hundred years before he 
was born, but it is explained by a footnote in later editions of 
the Book of Mormon that Jared’s brother only “saw the pre- 
existent spirit of Jesus.” 

This inclusion of Jesus Christ in Mormonism, however ex post 
facto it may appear to us, was either a stroke of wisdom upon 
the part of the founder of the new religion, or else a convenient 
piece of revelation upon the part of God. Had Mormonisni) 
‘scrapped entirely all the elements of Christianity, it would have 
died in America in less than a year. One of its great attractions | 
/was that it allowed those who became convinced to retain almost | 
every belief they had been taught to accept in church since man; 
hood and in Sunday school since childhood. Besides retaining 
all the old rites and privileges, Mormonism added some highly 
attractive promises of eventual monopoly of righteousness in an 
alleged Promised Land. Thus a convert to the Book of Mormon 
was asked to give up nothing that was a habit and was offered 
much additional advantage. Such a proffer was certain to be 
attractive to a man who “believed in orthodox Christianity, for 
he had nothing to lose, and, if the Mormons were right, he had 
much to gain. It was very worthwhile taking a chance, and it 
is not surprising that Mormonism eventually drew off many thou- 
sands of pious Christians from the old sects. The reason why it 
did not get more of them was, as we shall see, the rapidity with 
which those sects fought with fiery propaganda and political 
persecution any efforts of this ignorant upstart to progress at 
their expense. 

Christ is not the only celebrity mentioned anachronistically in 
the Book of Mormon. Shakespeare is there too. Nephi, who 
was supposed to have lived in the reign of King Zedekiah of 
Judah, knew the soliloquy from Hamlet. He speaks of the cold 
and silent grave, “from whence no traveler can return.” The 
words are not exactly Shakespeare’s, but the idea is near enough 
to have been suggested by him. The Book of Mormon also con- 
tains the phrase from Pope’s Essay on Man: “Through nature 
up to nature’s God.” A few minor anachronisms, outside the 
realm of literature, are the mention in the Book of Mormon of 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 51 


steel many centuries before it was used and the use by the 
Jaredites of a compass centuries before that instrument was 
known. 

The attempt to ape the Bible is followed carefully in the style 
of the Book of Mormon. It is filled with “And it came to pass.” 
Mark Twain said of Joseph Smith as an author: ‘Whenever he 
found his speech growing too modern—which was about every 
sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as 
‘exceeding sore,’ ‘and it came to pass,’ etc., and made things satis- 
factory again. ‘And it came to pass’ was his pet. If he had 
left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.”’ 

The errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling in the new 
bible were on almost every page of the first edition, and it was 
found advisable later to revise these. The modern editions con- 
tain more than 2,000 changes, mainly grammatical, but it is said 
that a few “And it came to passes” have been taken out. 

Orson Pratt, the philosopher of Mormonism, wrote: “The 
nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such, that if 
true, no one can possibly be saved and reject it; if false, 
no one can possibly be saved and receive it. Therefore, every 
soul in all the world is equally interested in ascertaining its truth 
or falsity.’’ At the time this challenge was written it was com- 
paratively true. Men and women were then tremendously exer- 
cised in public over the future, and some men proved to them- 
selves that the Book of Mormon was true, and others proved to 
their neighbors that it was false. After approximately a hun- 
dred years of this process, nothing material has happened, and 
the passions of the controversy have been softened by history. 
At the time when Pratt wrote his statement, and when Brigham 
Young ruled, the issue was vitally interesting, for then men 
largely believed that there was a future life, and that it was 
necessary to adopt the best means of arriving at it in state. There 
is, of course, another alternative to Orson Pratt’s dilemma. We 
can rest in comfort, if not in security, with the determination 
not to cross such a bridge until we come to it. But in order to 
understand the attitude of the period, we must put aside for the 
occasion this agnosticism, and to realize the state of mind of the 
people of the United States in 1830, we must allow them to beg 
the question of the hereafter. 


52 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


V 


The people who surrounded Joseph Smith and Brigham Young 
in their youth accepted the presence of a heaven and hell much 
as we to-day accept the presence of a Republican and a Demo- 
cratic party. Therefore, no matter how indifferent they may 
have been to the doctrines and dogmas of specific sects, sooner 
or later they were all faced with a most troublesome difficulty. 
They suddenly felt themselves unprepared for their inevitable 
death, and that meant, as a matter of course, an eternity with 
real flames and ten thousand devils in the cast, in which spectacle 
each one felt that he or she occupied the unenviable position of 
the subject of torment. 

A good example of the temper of the times is found in the 
autobiography of Charles G. Finney, who was the most inspiring 
evangelist of the period of Joseph Smith’s and Brigham Young’s 
adolescence. Finney was addressing a congregation in a village 
of western New York—much the same kind of village in which 
both Brigham Young and Joseph Smith grew up. Finney of- 
fered his audience the choice of accepting Christ by making peace 
with God in exactly the manner in which Finney directed, or of 
- rejecting Christ. Those who were willing to accept the Finney 
God were asked to stand up. The entire congregation sat still in 
hesitant bewilderment. Finney looked down at them with his 
deep-set, fierce, hypnotic eyes and said: “Then you are committed. 
You have taken your stand. You have rejected Christ and his 
Gospel; and ye are witnesses one against the other, and God is 
witness against you all. This is explicit, and you may remember 
as long as you live, that you have thus publicly committed your- 
selves against the Saviour, and said, ‘We will not have this man, 
Christ Jesus, to reign over us.’”’ The congregation was awe- 
struck as Finney left the pulpit and hurried from the building. 
When they went home that night, people all over the town were 
in fearful distress. One young woman was dumb with terror for 
sixteen hours. The entire village was converted immediately, 
and a prayer meeting was held every night thereafter in the vil- 
lage barroom by the barkeeper, who had previously been the most 
notorious blasphemer in the community. The people did not seem 
to realize that there were any alternatives except the Charles G. 
Finney God or damnation for eternity. By urging upon them the 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 53 


fear of the Devil, Finney had succeeded in persuading them of 
the love of God. 

Western New York in 1830 was bare of intellectual and social 
resources. The church was also the club for men and women, 
the theater, the library, and, when revival meetings were held, the 
motion picture performance. Men, women, and children took an 
earnest interest in the personalities of Moses, Abraham, Jacob, 
Joseph, David, Saul, and Jesus. The Bible narratives were the 
only fictions available for their entertainment and study, and the 
Bible was accordingly accepted as both human and divine. The 
people were as much interested in the special traits of their 
favorite Bible characters as their descendants are in those of their 
favorite motion picture actresses. It is easy to understand, there- 
fore, how Joseph Smith, however ignorant he may have been of 
other literature, obtained the intimate knowledge of the lives of 
the men and women of the Bible, which served him so well when 
he came to write, or, as he preferred to call it, to translate the 
Book of Mormon. 

One reason why the religious condition of the United States 
in 1830 was so unsettled is found in the absence of any established 
church, in the lap of which the comgnon people could comforta- 
bly rest their convictions concerningthe other world while they 
went about making the most of this one. In March, 1829, while 
Joseph Smith was still at work on his Book of Mormon, Robert 
Southey wrote what has since proved a remarkable prophecy con- 
cerning the religious condition of the United States. In his work 
on Sir Thomas More, Southey wrote: 


“America is in more danger from religious fanaticism. The Gov- 
ernment there not thinking it necessary to provide religious instruc- 
tion for the people in any of the New States, the prevalence of super- 
stition, and that, perhaps, in some wild and terrible shape, may be 
looked for as one likely consequence of this great and portentous 
omission. An Old Man of the Mountain might find dupes and 
followers as readily as the All-friend Jemima; and the next Aaron 
Burr who seeks to carve a kingdom for himself out of the overgrown 
territories of the Union, may discern that fanaticism is the most 
effective weapon with which ambition can arm itself; that the way 
for both is prepared by that immorality which the want of religion 
naturally and necessarily induces, and that Camp Meetings may be 
very well directed to forward the designs of Military Prophets. 
Were there another Mohammed to arise, there is no part of the 


54 ~BRIGHAM YOUNG 


world where he would find more scope or fairer opportunity than 
in that part of the Anglo-American Union into which the older 
States continually discharge the restless part of their population, 
leaving Laws and Gospel to overtake it if they can, for in the march 
of modern colonization both are left behind.” 


Within one year after Southey’s prediction Mormonism was 
launched, the Yankee Mohammed had arisen and was finding 
customers in the migratory population of the small towns. The 
future history of Mormonism, as we shall see, paralleled to a 
remarkable degree Robert Southey’s prediction. 

The absence of any established church with official religious 
instruction resulted in confusion. The various sects of Chris- 
tianity were dividing and subdividing, so that, by a sort of process 
of fission, each sect became many little sects with slight family 
differences and many family quarrels. This wild dissension and 
uproarious misunderstanding were likely to breed a state of be- 
wilderment in an adolescent mind, and both Brigham Young and 
Joseph Smith confessed to such a state of mind in their youth. 
They asked themselves often, Which is the right religion? And 
it is not difficult to understand how Smith soon ar rived at the 
simple conclusion that there was none, and that it was time some 
one started one. That is the way in which most great business 
enterprises have originated. Brigham Young’s mind being of a 
more practical turn, he could not conceive of himsels as a prophet 
so easily as the more mystic Smith. 

During Joseph Smith’s youth there were great revival meetings 
at Palmyra and in the surrounding towns and villages. That 
whole section of the country was in such a continual state of 
orgiastic religious ferment that it was known as the “burnt-over 
district.” It was not only fashionable in that crude society to 
suffer a “saving change of heart,” but it was considered radical 
not to do so. The religious revivals were the most powerful 
imaginative influence of their time. The first large-scale revival 
was that of the Presbyterians in Kentucky, which began in Logan 
County in 1800. Twenty thousand people were present on one 
night. Camp fires gleamed at various spots in the huge enclosure 
cleared for the purpose by zealous Kentucky woodsmen. Around 
them was blackness and an ominous forest. As it grew darker 
the voices of the preachers, with their prophecies of a lurid and 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 55 


a terrifying doom, grew louder. Hysterical song burst from them 
and their congregations ; shouts of religious ecstasy penetrated the 
undertone of moans, sobs, and groans. Men and women re- 
mained all night, rushing from group to group at the rumor that 
livelier things were happening here or there. Then those who 
caught the spell began to fall. They writhed and finally became 
rigid, in what was regarded as a religious trance. The preaching 
went on unconcerned as the bodies fell under the eyes of the 
preachers. Spontaneous preaching began from the congregation. 
At the Kentucky revival a little girl of seven was propped on a 
man’s shoulders, so that the huge mass of men and women might 
hear her lisping testimony of new-found grace, until finally she 
_sank exhausted on the man’s head. : 

At the height of their frenzy converts were seized with strange 
manifestations of divinity. Their muscles contracted and con- 
torted; they enjoyed what was known as “the jerks,” consisting 
of spasmodic wriggling of the head or feet, so that the victim 
either hopped about like a demented frog or wagged his head 
back and forth like a neurotic horse. One minister estimated 
proudly that in his rather small congregation more than five 
hundred persons were “jerking” at once. Some were seized with 
“the barks,’ which, as the name implies, consisted of hopping 
about on hands and feet and barking furiously like an irritated 
mastiff, completing the imitation by snapping the teeth or by 
growls. There was also the ‘holy laugh: As the minister was 
preaching, members of the congregation broke out into solemn 
laughter, not of criticism, but of devotion. Speaking of the 
effects of revivals, an English clergyman who witnessed them 
remarked: “Sometimes, even, in endeavoring to make a convert 
the unwise and frantic preacher would make a madman.” And 
at the meetings in the night, with the surroundings of conceal- 
ing woods and the excitement of religious ecstasy, ministers com- 
plained that the men and women of their congregation formed 
into couples and wandered off into the woods for inexplicable 
diversion and relief, so that it became necessary to station night 
watches at various places in the enclosures in an effort to stem 
the tide of sexual promiscuity. 

The rumors of these huge religious conversions spread from 
the mountains which at first confined them to all the communities 
of the sparsely settled country, and religion became an excitement. 


56 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


The region in western New York where Joseph Smith and Brig- 
ham Young lived was a particularly fertile field for religious 
enthusiasm. During a period of twenty years it was the scene of 
the origin of three religious movements which stirred American 
life at the time. Besides the Mormons, the Muillerites also orig- 
inated in this “burnt-over district.” Under the influence of a 
Vermont farmer, William Miller, thousands of people climbed to 
the tops of high hills one day in the eighteen-forties and waited 
confidently for the trumpet call that was to proclaim the end of 
the world. And then they came down again and waited some 
more, just as confidently. The Rochester spiritualist rappers 
arose in the same neighborhood. The Followers of Christ were 
passing through on their way west. Their prophet, who came 
from Canada, was described as a man of austere habits, who 
rejected surnames, forbade marriage, allowed his followers to 
cohabit promiscuously, and had not changed his clothes in seven 
years. 

This religious enthusiasm was a reaction from a period of 
religious indifference, and even antagonism, which in turn had 
been a reaction from the hell-fire period of Jonathan Edwards 
and his colonial associates. Just before the Revolutionary War, 
during that war, and after the war, there was widespread infidel- 
ity, and what the clergy chose to regard as immorality in the 
form of sexual aberration and drinking. Tom Paine had supplied 
a definite demand in his crystallization of the common unbelief in 
the Age of Reason, which, in spite of its attempted suppression, 
was circulated widely. Students at Yale College boasted of their 
infidelity and went about calling themselves Diderot, D’Alembert, 
Voltaire, Rousseau, Robespierre, and Danton, instead of their 
own names. At Bowdoin College during this period only one 
student had the courage to admit that he was a Christian in the 
technical sense of the term. It was the common belief in the 
intellectual circles of the time that Christianity, so called, could 
not survive two generations. In 1811 when the Rey. Dr. E. D. 
Griffin took up his position as a minister of an evangelical church, 
“The current of prevailing thought was so averse to evangelical 
religion, that to raise a voice in its defense was to hazard one’s 
reputation among respectable people.” Men of intelligence and 
culture were attracted by reports of Dr. Griffin’s eloquence and 
the powers of his mind, but such was the prejudice against 
religion that they wandered into his church for his Sunday eve- 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED iF 


ning lectures in partial disguise, and sat in obscure, dark corners 
with their caps over their faces and their coats turned inside out.*° 

The result of the prevalent unbelief was the opposite of what 
the agnostics expected. It produced, not the. disappearance of 
Christianity, but its multiplication and division under new, and 
sometimes weird, forms. One of these, destined to survive most 
of the others, was Mormonism. The time was ripe for a man 
who offered practical and at the same time fulsome interference 
of God in the affairs of men to their economic and political 
benefit as well as for their spiritual salvation. People were ex- 
pecting a Daniel, or at least the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, 
to come along almost any day. Joseph Smith listened to the 
tumult of religious controversy, and, as one writer has pointed 
out, he was controlled by its influence much as a boy of 1849 was 
influenced by tales of gold in California. He read the Bible and 
retained much of it. He listened to country store discussions of 
religion and politics, and in his mind these influences ripened into 
the Book of Mormon and the establishment of his own church. 


VI 


There is a theory that the Book of Mormon was a plagiariza- 
tion, and since its invention a few years after the Book of 
Mormon was published, that theory has been widely held to 
explain the authorship. According to this story the latter-day 
bible was based on a manuscript written by a literary clergyman 
whose name was Solomon Spalding. 

Solomon Spalding was born in Ashford, Connecticut, in 1761. 
His. brother said that early in life Solomon was interested in 
writing. At first, however, he studied law, but soon gave that up 
because religion suddenly interested him, and he entered Dart- 
mouth College with the intention of qualifying for the ministry. 
He was regularly ordained and preached for three or four years, 
but he abandoned the ministry to become a merchant. He was 
not successful and moved to Conneaut, Ohio, where his brother 
found him building a forge. He was considerably involved in 
debt, and when his brother visited him to offer aid, Solomon 
Spalding told him that he had been writing a book, and that he 


10 The Problem of Religious Progress, by Daniel Dorchester, pp. 103-104. I 
am indebted for much information about religious revivals to Primitive Traits 
in Religious Revivals, by Frederick Morgan Davenport. 


58 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


was depending upon the returns from this book to pay his debts 
and establish him in comfort for the rest of his life. The book 
was entitled The Manuscript Found. It was an_ historical 
romance of the first settlers of America, and Solomon Spalding 
adopted the then prevalent theory that the American Indians were 
direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. The book was said 
to contain an account of their wanderings similar to that in the 
Book of Mormon. Spalding is said to have believed that his 
romance would explain the presence of mounds and fortifications 
on the American continent before the arrival of white men, and 
he also told his neighbors that in one hundred years his book 
would be believed as readily as any history of England. Relatives 
and neighbors said that Solomon Spalding finished his book and 
took it to the print shop of Patterson and Lambdin in Pittsburgh. 
Patterson and Lambdin retained the manuscript for a long time, 
but finally decided not to publish it, and it is said that while the 
manuscript was lying in their offices, it came to the attention of 
Sidney Rigdon, who was soon to become the right-hand man of 
the Prophet Joseph Smith. Meanwhile, Solomon Spalding died. 

Sidney Rigdon was born February 19, 1793, on a farm about 
twelve miles south of Pittsburgh. Early in life he showed a great 
interest in religion, but first he practised the trade of printer and 
is said to have worked for Patterson and Lambdin, but he him- 
self denied the connection. He was ordained a pastor in the | 
Baptist church and held a pulpit in Pittsburgh during 1822. Here 
he met Alexander Campbell, the founder of Campbellism, a form 
of the Baptist religion. Rigdon joined Campbell and preached in 
favor of the restoration of the ancient order of things, and espe- 
cially the old doctrine of consecration of all temporal possessions 
to the church. But his parishioners did not take readily to this 
doctrine, and Rigdon left Pittsburgh to preach Campbellism in 
Kirtland, Ohio. He is said to have taken Solomon Spalding’s 
manuscript, or at least a copy of it, with him from Pittsburgh, 
and it is claimed that he later gave it to Joseph Smith, who, with 
the aid of Rigdon, used it in the composition of the Book of 
Mormon. 

There are many flaws in this theory of the origin of the Book 
of Mormon. There is absolutely no evidence worthy of considera- 
tion that Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith ever met before more 
than a year after the publication of the Book of Mormon; it has 
also been impossible to establish definitely, in spite of desperate 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 59 


efforts, that Sidney Rigdon ever worked for the printing firm of 
Patterson and Lambdin. Solomon Spalding’s manuscript was 
returned to him some time before his death in 1816, according 
to the admission of his widow, from whom the originators of 
the Spalding story were careful to get affidavits. Rigdon’s resi- 
dence in Pittsburgh was during 1821, five years after Spalding’s 
death. 

The Spalding theory was originated by Philaster Hurlburt, 
who was associated with the Mormons during their early history, 
but who was cut off from the Church for adultery and the at- 
tempted murder of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Hurlburt lectured 
against the Mormons soon after his excommunication, and he 
visited Spalding’s widow, who gave him her husband’s manu- 
script, which he told her he intended to publish in order to con- 
found the Mormons. Later she received a letter from Hurlburt 
that the manuscript did not read as he had expected, and that 
therefore it would not be printed, but it was not returned to Mrs. 
Spalding. The manuscript was found many years later in a trunk 
in Honolulu. The trunk had once belonged to E. D. Howe, a 
newspaper publisher, and the author of the first book of im- 
portance against the Mormons, Mormonism Unveiled, in which 
book the Spalding theory was originated and maintained. Spald- 
ing’s manuscript is now in the library of Oberlin College, and a 
facsimile of it was published. It bears no relation to the Book 
of Mormon in subject matter or in style. 

The Spalding story was an attempt on the part of the first 
ardent anti-Mormons to discredit the divine origin of the Book of 
Mormon. It was based on the testimony of neighbors and rela- 
tives of Solomon Spalding given more than twenty years after 
the events of which they were said to be witnesses. These men 
and women said that the Book of Mormon sounded to them like 
the Spalding manuscript, which Solomon Spalding used to read 
to them twenty years before, while he was still at work on it, 
and in this long stretch of memory they were aided by those who 
took their testimony. The very questions which Hurlburt and 
Howe asked suggested the answers for which they hoped. 
Spalding’s brother, John Spalding, expressed himself as “amazed” 
and moved to tears that his brother’s innocent manuscript had 
been used for the purpose of founding a fraudulent religion, but 
he only experienced that amazement and shed those tears after 
it had been suggested to him by his interlocutors that such was 


60 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the purpose for which the manuscript had been used. The whole 
Spalding story is an instance of the feverish efforts of anti- 
Mormons to prove that Joseph Smith was incapable of writing 
the Book of Mormon without the aid of God, and they refused 
to admit for a moment that he did so with the aid of God. It 
is my conviction that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon 
without the aid of God, and that the book itself shows evidence 
of being a product of Smith’s environment. 

When a man says that God was his collaborator in a literary 
work, and that he had visions in which angels appeared before 
him and promised delightful special privileges, we who do not 
receive angels are inclined to dismiss him with an epithet instead 
of an argument. But there is nothing extraordinary in the 
visionary phenomena of Joseph Smith’s life, however remarkable 
they may be in detail. He is a good example of what has hap- 
pened to thousands of adolescent boys and girls between the ages 
of fourteen and seventeen in all nations and climates. Psychol- 
ogists who have specialized in religious experience have found 
hundreds of potential Joseph Smiths, who did not find it necessary 
to found religions around their conversions, but who passed 
through almost identical experiences. The frequency of this sud- 
den, adolescent phenomenon of religious enthusiasm led Pro- 
fessor Starbuck to define religious conversion as “in its essence 
a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from 
the child’s small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual 
life of maturity.” 

The symptoms which most religious converts indicate are those 
which assailed Joseph Smith as a boy and as a young man. He 
experienced a sense of incompleteness and imperfection, brooding, 
depression, morbid introspection, conviction of sin and anxiety 
about the hereafter. Only a spontaneous spark was needed to 
light the tinder of spirituality which had been accumulating in 
Joseph Smith’s mind for some years. Where that spark came 
from, and how it did its final work, are matters of detail, which, 
unfortunately, it is impossible to discover. Joseph Smith was 
sure that it came from God, and he gave details of the appear- 
ance of visiting angels; others have maintained that it came from 
the Devil, or from the Rev. Solomon Spalding. The important 
thing, however, is the background of environment, heredity, and 
experience which made it plausible, and almost inevitable, that 
Joseph Smith should act as he did. We have seen how conducive 


A YANKEE MOHAMMED 61 


his heredity and environment were to religious enterprise, and 
we shall now see how he used definite bits of his experience in the 
composition of the Book of Mormon. 

One of the principal matters of speculation in Joseph Smith’s 
youth was the origin of the American Indian, and the most 
prevalent theory was that he was a direct descendant of the lost 
tribes of Israel. Josiah Priest published in 1824 The Wonders 
of Nature and Providence in which he presented an elaborate 
argument to prove that the Indians came originally from Israel. 
This book was copyrighted in the office of R. R. Lansing, Clerk 
of the Northern District of New York, the same office in which 
the Book of Mormon copyright was registered five years later. 
Meanwhile, Josiah Priest’s book had circulated widely throughout 
western New York, and Joseph Smith may very easily have seen 
it during the time when he was composing the Book of Mormon. 
Joseph’s imagination had always been stirred by the frequent dis- 
coveries of bones and pottery, old spear heads and ancient relics on 
the neighboring farms. ‘There were also ancient mounds and 
earthworks in the neighborhood which aroused his curiosity and 
bewilderment. His mother wrote: 


“During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally 
give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. 
He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their 
dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they rode; 
their cities, their buildings, with every particular ; their mode of war- 
fare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as 
much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them.” 


When he came to write the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith 
found this facility of imagination very useful. He also used more 
tangible experience, however. The vision of Lehi in the first book 
of Nephi of the Book of Mormon parallels to a remarkable 
degree a vision which, according to his mother’s book, Joseph’s 
father received in a dream. This is the only detailed instance 
of exact duplication, but the Book of Mormon also contains dis- 
cussions of most of the problems which were agitating minds 
in western New York during the first twenty-five years of the 
nineteenth century. It discusses infant baptism, ordination, the 
trinity, regeneration, repentance, the fall of man, the atonement, 
republican government, the rights of man and free masonry. 
During Joseph Smith’s youth New York State was aroused by 


62 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


violent anti-Masonic riots. This influence shows markedly in the 
Book of Mormon, which contains several terms used in the ritual 
of free masonry. Masonry was always popular with the Mor- 
mons until Joseph Smith claimed that an angel of the Lord had 
brought him the lost key-words of several degrees, enabling him 
to progress further than the highest Masons. The charter of the 
Mormon lodge was then taken away by the Grand Lodge. 

Joseph Smith differed from the ordinary revival convert in the 
important respect that he possessed ambition and an imagination. 
The tendency of the convert is to follow the leader, but, as we 
have seen, Joseph Smith was unable to do this. There were any 
number of revival ministers practising in his neighborhood, and 
he could have joined one or more of them and eased his mind, 
but it was impossible for him to be a sheep because he wanted so 
much to be a shepherd, and this desire was undoubtedly influ- 
enced by a realization that it was more profitable to own your 
own sheep. Joseph Smith’s visions and revelations were probably 
produced by a combination of self-hypnotism and the desire to 
deceive for the purpose of gaining a living. That he tried often 
to deceive others is easy to see from some of his revelations, but 
that he ended by deceiving himself is just as easy to see from 
his actions. He needed money, and that consideration contributed 
to the founding of his religion, for his anxiety for his own 
security is ever-present. But on that account he cannot be set 
down as a complete fraud, as he was by many of his contem- 
poraries. That he used his religion, sometimes crudely, to con- 
tribute to his support is no reason why he did not also believe 
sincerely in that religion. There was undoubtedly an element of 
fakery in his faith, but there was also an element of superstitious 
sincerity in his fakery. 

William James wrote: “We may now lay it down as certain 
that in the distinctively religious sphere of experience, many per- 
sons (how many we cannot tell) possess the objects of their 
belief, not in the form of mere conceptions which their intellect 
accepts as true, but rather in the form of quasi-sensible realities 
directly apprehended.” Joseph Smith was undoubtedly one of 
those persons whom we may call gifted or deluded as our interest 
in religious faith is either hot or cold. Joseph Smith was vividly 
aware of what William James designated “the consciousness of 
a presence,” and in this respect he was not unusual, as the archives 
of the Society for Psychical Research and the private collections 





Jos—EPH SMITH 
From a contemporary engraving 


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7 


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A YANKEE MOHAMMED 63 


of psychologists indicate. The difference between Joseph Smith 
and the thousands of people who annually feel a consciousness 
of a presence is that he thought it either convenient or neces- 
sary to act upon his experience and found a religious sect. Had 
he been a man of extensive education, elegant manners, and some 
money, he would have been respected for his faith, by the multi- 
tude of the thoughtless and followed for his theosophy by those 
cultivated men and women in the United States who have always 
joined with the abstruse and the novel. But he was, like his emi- 
nent predecessor, Jesus, of lowly origin; he was pitifully poor; he 
had been known to drink to the point of intoxication ; he did not go 
to school, and he had not read extensively in the evenings after 
his work on the farm. His pecuniary interest in the foundation 
of a strong religious community was nearer the surface of his 
mind and more clearly apparent in his actions than that of other 
_ mystic men with religious propensities. However, the fact that 
he had considerable to gain in material circumstances by the organ- 
ization of a church does not prove that he was any less a true 
mystic. He was a Yankee mystic, who, though he had an interest 
in the main chance, was none the less absorbed in his visions and 
convinced of their reality. 

In his youth Joseph Smith was torn between the fear of not 
being saved eternally and the desire to have a good time from 
day to day. Fortunately for his peace of mind he was able to 
reconcile the two by having himself appointed by God to have a 
good time. Early in his life he set up a comforting and com- 
fortable system by which he combined faith in himself with faith 
in God, because he had convinced himself thoroughly that God 
had faith in him. The rest of his life, as we shall see, was a 
process of convincing, other people of that intangible appointment, 
and that process led him to do things which were often droll but 
usually sincere. 

The fact that Joseph Smith was uneducated is the greatest 
argument used in his favor by his followers and against him by 
his detractors. Once devout Mormons accepted by faith the idea 
that he was divinely inspired, they were able to point with pride 
to his lack of education as proof that he was a miracle. But 
there is nothing in the Book of Mormon that could not have been 
written by an uneducated man, and the claim that Smith was 
incapable of writing the Book of Mormon is weakened by his 
later literary performances. His revelations are as finished as 


64. BRIGHAM YOUNG 


and far more interesting than the Book of Mormon, and during 
the ensuing years he was the author, or, as he preferred to call it, 
the translator, of the Visions of Moses, a revised translation of 
the Old and New Testaments, and the Book of Abraham. It is 
true that he then had assistants, but they were useful mainly to 
correct grammar, for the mark of his personality is indelible in 
his revelations, 

The alternatives in the case of the authenticity of Joseph Smith 
are: Either God wrote and dictated the Book of Mormon and the 
revelations of Joseph Smith with the aid of Joseph Smith, or 
Joseph Smith wrote them alone. One’s decision on this point 
depends on how much one believes in Joseph Smith and how 
much one believes in God. I prefer to believe that the Book of 
Mormon is by “Joseph Smith, Jun., Author and Proprietor,” as, 
with a naive slip of the pen, the title page of the first edition 
puts it. 

The important question is not whether Joseph Smith was di- 
vinely inspired, but whether he thought he was divinely inspired, 
or whether he merely preferred other people to think so to his 
great financial advantage. It is impossible to determine that ex- 
actly without a confession from the accused. It is my impression 
that he began by discovering that he could fool other people and 
ended by completely fooling himself. Whatever else he was, 
however, Joseph Smith was not commonplace. As a boy he was 
conspicuous for his lack of conformity to the ordinary ways 
of making a living on a farm by the sweat of his brow, and we 
shall see that as a man he was conspicuous as a prophet, a gen- 
eral, a lover and a self-constituted candidate for President of the 
United States. 


Chapter III 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 


I 


Tue Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organ- 
ized formally by Joseph Smith, Jr., his two brothers, three Whit- 
mers, and Oliver Cowdery on April 6, 1830. Orson Pratt, who 
was the mathematician of Mormonism as well as its philosopher, 
calculated that April 6, 1830, was exactly 1800 years to the day 
after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The organizers met at 
Peter Whitmer, Sen.’s, house in Fayette, Seneca County, New 
York; Joseph and Oliver ordained each other, and then they gave 
the gift of the Holy Ghost to the other four. They named the 
new organization the Church of Jesus Christ, and it was only 
some years later that they added unto themselves the qualification 
of latter-day saints. For the occasion of the formal opening God 
gave Joseph Smith a revelation, which was in the nature of 
credentials, in which He commanded that Joseph Smith must be 
obeyed implicitly, for he was God’s apostle. Soon after the 
organization of the Church Martin Harris, Joseph Smith’s father 
and mother, and Orrin Porter Rockwell were baptized in Seneca 
Lake. 

The Book of Mormon had created only a ripple of derisive 
interest in Palmyra when it was published there, and the Prophet 
was literally without honor in his own neighborhood. His neigh- 
bors refused to believe that the boy whom they had known for so 
many years as the most ragged and the laziest boy in the place, 
who had stood up against fences for hours, with his “torn and 
patched trousers held to his form by a pair of suspenders made 
out of sheeting, with his calico shirt as dirty and black as the 
earth, and his uncombed hair sticking through the holes in his 
old battered hat,’ could possibly be the elect of God. Young 
Joseph was convivial, and he had amused them with imaginative 
stories, but that too was against Ne as Prophet, for real prophets 

6 


66 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


in the Bible made fierce predictions and were almost never pleas- 
antly entertaining. Joseph Smith had also smoked cigars and 
drunk liquor, and none of the real prophets had ever been known 
to do those things. Brigham Young once pointed out with ad- 
mirable logic the irrelevancy of these prejudices against the divin- 
ity of Joseph Smith: 


“T recollect a conversation I had with a priest who was an old 
friend of ours, before I was personally acquainted with the Prophet 
Joseph. I clipped every argument he advanced, until at last he came 
out and began to rail against ‘Joe Smith,’ saying, ‘that he was a 
mean man, a liar, money-digger, gambler, and a whoremaster’; and 
he charged him with everything bad, that he could find language to 
utter. I said, hold on, Brother Gillmore, here is the doctrine, here 
is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the revelations that have 
come through Joseph Smith the Prophet. I have never seen him, 
and do not know his private character. The doctrine he teaches 
is all I know about the matter, bring anything against that if you 
can. As to anything else I do not care. If he acts like a devil, 
he has brought forth a doctrine that will save us, if we will abide 
it. He may get drunk every day of his life, sleep with his neighbor’s 
wife every night, run horses and gamble, I do not care anything 
about that, for I never embrace any man in my faith. But the 
doctrine he has produced will save you and me, and the whole 
world; and if you can find fault with that, find it. He said, ‘I 
have done.’ ” + 


This was a good argument, but the personal character of Joseph 
Smith cannot be divorced entirely from the spiritual character of 
his religion, for his revelations, as we shall see, sometimes coin- 
cided strangely with his personal desires. 

The progress of the new church was retarded in the villages of 
western New York by the fact that Joseph Smith had been heard 
using profane language and was known to remark that he was 
as good as Jesus Christ. The testimony that Joseph Smith got 
drunk frequently cannot be accepted fully. Almost every well- 
known man has friends of his youth who used to get drunk with 
him, as soon as they have heard that he has become famous, but 
it is also true that the famous man sometimes used to get drunk 
with them. The whole controversy, which has been the subject 
of affidavits for and against, is not important. One of Smith’s 
followers wrote the most sensible thing about the matter: ‘And 


1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 77-78. 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 67 


now I ask, who there is that has lived thirty years in this world 
and at a time when it was fashionable for all people to make use 
of ardent spirits as a beverage, and have not as much as twice 
drank too much? But it is said that ‘he was quarrelsome when 
intoxicated.’ Well, this is not very strange; most people are; 
but if he only got intoxicated twice, and only quarreled twice, I 
think by humble repentance he might be forgiven.” 

The new Church of six charter members began slowly to make 
converts of these members’ friends. They baptized whole families 
of Whitmers and Smiths and Rockwells and Jollys. In the be- 
ginning families joined in bulk, and we have seen how all of 
Brigham Young’s family were converted together. Joseph Smith 
ordained all his brothers ministers, even Don Carlos Smith, who 
was only fourteen years old. Joseph also wrote to all his uncles 
and invited them to join the Church. One of them, John Smith, 
when he received the invitation, remarked that “Joseph wrote 
like a Prophet.” Asahel Smith when he heard of the birth of 
the Book of Mormon said that it was true, “for he always knew 
that something would turn up in his family that would revolu- 
tionize the world. ... . He lived till the Book of Mormon was 
brought to him, and died when he had read it about half through, 
being 87 years of age.” Joseph Smith’s father was in the habit 
of referring to his talented son as “the genus of the family.” 

At first it was very difficult to make any converts outside of the 
families of the founders. In Colesville, New York, the Mormons 
built a dam for use in baptizing converts. It was destroyed by the 
townspeople, and, after a mass meeting of indignation, Joseph 
Smith was arrested on a warrant charging him with disorderly 
conduct. At the ensuing trial attempts were made to prove that 
he had obtained a horse and oxen by telling their owners that an 
angel had authorized him to possess those animals. Some women 
were also brought to the witness stand to prove his immoral char- 
acter, but they testified in his favor. He was acquitted, but was 
immediately rearrested on a warrant from Broome County and 
hurried away to the court there. He wrote later that as he was 
brought into a tavern by the constable, the crowd spit upon him, 
pointed their fingers at him and shouted, ‘Prophesy, prophesy!” 
“And thus,” wrote Joseph, “did they imitate those who crucified 
the Saviour of mankind, not knowing what they did.” Through- 
out his lifetime it was a source of great comfort in their tribula- 
tions to the Prophet and his followers that he was, as nearly as 


68 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


possible in the nineteenth century, following in the footsteps of 
his illustrious predecessor. He was acquitted again. 

Soon after the Church was organized, efforts were made to sell 
the Book of Mormon. The price had been fixed by the angel of 
God at $1.75. Martin Harris, Samuel Smith, and others took 
to the road in the neighborhood and tried to sell the book at that 
price, but they found it impossible. Whereupon Joseph received 
instructions from God that possibly $1.75 was too high, and he 
was officially authorized to sell the book for $1.25. Eventually, 
it was sold for anything offered, and the salesmen frequently took 
merchandise instead of money. Samuel Smith was a good sales- 
man of the Book of Mormon. He soon discovered that it hurt 
people’s prejudices to be offered a new Bible, and he therefore 
asked them if they did not wish to buy a history of the origin 
of the Indians. Martin Harris on one occasion was trying to sell 
a copy to an irascible neighbor. As he grew more insistent the 
farmer became very. angry, and finally he struck Harris a vigorous 
blow on the right cheek. Martin Harris, happy at the oppor- 
tunity to reénact a portion of Scripture, with zealous haste shoved 
out his left cheek and hurriedly read from page 481 of the Book 
of Mormon: “Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn 
to him the other also.”’ It is not recorded whether the neighbor 
smote Harris’s left cheek or bought a copy of the Book of Mor- 
mon. Martin Harris gave up all his time to advertising Mor- 
monism and to trying to sell the book in which he had invested 
so much of his money. He called public meetings and addressed 
them himself. He made such extravagant statements to the neigh- 
bors that he was generally regarded with the good-humored toler- 
ance accorded the village idiot. He predicted the impending 
downfall of the United States government and the immediate 
triumph of Mormonism, and offered that if his prophecies were 
not fulfilled any one might cut off his head and roll it round the 
streets of Palmyra as a football. In the first few months of the 
new Church’s existence one of Joseph Smith’s unmarried sisters 
proved to be enceinte, and it was immediately declared an im- 
maculate conception, in the course of which a Messiah would be 
given to the world. Martin Harris was delighted at the prospect 
of “an immaculate conception in our day and generation.” ‘The 
miracle took place some months later, and, instead of the son 
who was to be born, resulted in a stillborn girl. The accident was 
set down to disobedience. It is said that one of Smith’s disciples, 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 69 


and not God, was the father of Miss Smith’s child, but there is 
no definite proof on either side. 

A. few months after the Church was organized Joseph Smith 
performed his first miracle on the person of one of his devout 
followers, Newell Knight, who sent for Smith to cure him of pos- 
session by the Devil. Joseph Smith wrote that Knight, his body 
twisted into queer shapes, begged his Prophet to heal him, “saying 
that he knew that he (the Devil) was in him, and that he also 
knew I could cast him out. I replied, ‘If you know that I can, 
it shall be done.’ ’”’ This was a wise answer, and soon afterwards, 
when Joseph had commanded the Devil in the name of Jesus 
Christ to be gone, Newell Knight imagined that “he saw the devil 
leave him and vanish from his sight.” The Devil being an over- 
mastering idea, and Newell Knight having complete faith in 
Joseph Smith’s ability to master him, the first miracle was not 
difficult to perform. The Mormons have always believed in heal- 
ing by faith and by the laying on of hands, but, early in the history 
of the Church, after all the remedies of his new religion had failed, 
Joseph Smith called in an obstetrician for his wife Emma. 

Some of his neighbors have testified that early in his career 
as a practising theologian Joseph Smith, -Jr., attempted to walk 
upon the water. But in the neighborhood there existed several 
small boys of mischievous alertness. They discovered the planks 
which Smith is said to have placed slightly beneath the surface of 
the body of water he chose to walk upon, and by loosening these 
just before the miracle was to take place, the boys brought it 
about that the Prophet went precipitately and ignominiously to 
the bottom of the lake. The neighbors and the small boys en- 
joyed the joke hugely, but the Prophet lost none of his few faith- 
ful followers as a result of his ducking. 

The early converts were not many, and none of them was im- 
portant until Parley Parker Pratt arrived in Joseph Smith’s neigh- 
borhood. Pratt had been living in Kirtland, Ohio, where he met 
Sidney Rigdon and was associated with him in preaching Camp- 
bellism. Pratt was enjoying comparative comfort and peace of 
mind, but one day he held this strange conversation with his 
brother William. - Pratt reproduced it as follows in his auto- 
biography: 


“T then unlocked my treasury and drew from thence a large 
pocket book full of promissory notes like the following: ‘Whoever 


70 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


shall forsake father or mother, brethren or sisters, houses or lands, 
wife or children, for my sake and the gospel’s, shall receive an 
hundred fold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting.’ 
‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what 
you will in my name and I will give it you.’ ‘All things are possible 
to him that believeth.’ 

“‘“Now, William,’ said I, ‘are these the words of Jesus Christ, 
or are they not?’ 

““«They certainly are,’ said he, ‘I always believed the New Testa- 
ment.’ 

“«Then you admit they are genuine bills? 

“cc ‘T do.’ 

“Ts the signer able to meet his engagements ?” 

“ “He certainly is.’ 

“Ts he willing? 

Tg Eis i 

“Well, then, I am going to fulfill the conditions to the letter on 
my part. I feel called upon by the Holy Ghost to forsake my house 
and home for the gospel’s sake; and I will do it, placing both feet 
firm on these promises with nothing else to rely upon. If I sink, 
they are false. If 1 am sustained, they are true. I will put them 
to the test. Experiment shall now establish the truth of Christ’s 
promises, or the truth of infidelity.’ 

“ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘try it, if you will; but, for my part, although 
I always believed the Bible, I would not dare believe it literally, and 
really stand upon its promises with no other prop.’ ” 


Soon afterwards Parley Pratt left his farm and journeyed east 
with his wife. At Newark, on his way to New York, he heard of 
the Book of Mormon. He went to refute Joseph Smith’s argu- 
ments, and, after he heard the new Prophet deliver a sermon, 
he remained to be baptized. He was an ardent proselyte, and soon 
after his own baptism in August, 1830, he baptized his brother, 
Orson Pratt, who was then only nineteen years old. The Pratt 
brothers were intensely religious and superstitious. They fre- 
quently saw signs of the coming of the Son of Man in the skies, 
and though Parley did not take enough interest in astronomy to 
make it possible for him to believe that they were anything but 
spiritual. manifestations, his brother Orson, who later became an 
expert mathematician and a capable astronomer, should have 
known better. But even mathematicians in those days attributed 
considerably more to God than they do to-day. 

While he was on a mission to convert the Indians of Missouri 
to Mormonism, Parley Pratt met Sidney Rigdon again and gave 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 71 


him a copy of the Book of Mormon. Rigdon, after some hesita- 
tion and doubt, was converted, and he went to Palmyra to visit 
the Prophet. The result was the decision of Joseph Smith to 
remove the Church and his followers from Palmyra, where he 
said he suffered from persecution, and where he certainly was 
subject to disrespect, to Kirtland, Ohio, an intensely religious 
community, which offered excellent opportunities for a new re- 
ligion with enough elements of the old creeds. Here the Church 
could begin a new life under promising auspices, for at Kirtland 
Joseph Smith was unknown and Sidney Rigdon was well known. 


IT 


In the first revelation which the Lord gave to Joseph Smith, 
Jr., at Kirtland, Ohio, on February 4, 1831, there was this sig- 
nificant sentence: “And again, it is meet that my servant Joseph 
Smith, jun., should have a house built, in which to live and trans- 
late.’ A few days later the Lord said: “And if ye desire the 
glories of the kingdom, appoint ye my servant Joseph Smith, jun., 
and uphold him before me by the prayer of faith. And again, I 
say unto you, that if ye desire the mysteries of the kingdom, 
provide for him food and raiment, and whatsoever thing he need- 
eth to accomplish the work, wherewith I have commanded him. 
And if ye do it not, he shall remain unto them that have received 
him, that I may reserve unto myself a pure people before me.” 

Early in his career as a prophet Joseph Smith adopted the wise 
policy of never asking his followers to do anything for him in 
his own name. He realized that the will of the Lord was much 
more powerful than his own. The Lord signed everything for 
Joseph Smith, and, such was the faith at the time, few of the 
faithful dared to risk salvation by crying forgery. And Joseph 
Smith never seemed to realize that to the unbiased mind it looked 
often as if Joseph Smith had prompted God rather than that God 
had prompted Joseph Smith; therefore his revelations sometimes 
sound incredibly naive. He also never gave an order on his own 
authority, but invariably went into conference with the Lord 
whenever a problem arose, and usually he came out of conference 
with a fully developed decision. Smith preferred to put every- 
thing up to God and to let Him take the consequences. The result 
was that whenever there were complaints, he could always tell the 
grumblers to talk to God, which they did, by means of prayer. 


te 


we 


(2 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


As the only basis for their prayers were the statements of Joseph 
Smith, God usually supported the Prophet in His answers. When 
some members of other sects argued that this continual conversa- 
tion with God was unscriptural, Sidney Rigdon answered: “If 
you have not familiarity enough with your Creator to ask of him 
a sign, you are no Christians, and if God will not condescend to 
his creatures, in this way, he is no better than Juggernaut!” 

Soon after the Church was organized, Emma Smith began to 
fear for the financial security of herself and her distinguished 
_ husband; she urged that, since he could not possibly prophesy all 
day long, a part time job at some more lucrative work would 
help the family finances, for Joseph promptly received a revela- 
tion from God, who said to Mrs. Smith: “Emma, thou art an 
elect lady and thou needst not fear, for thy husband shalt support 
thee from the Church.” This was revised when the second edition 
of the revelations was published to read, “thy husband shalt sup- 
port thee im the Church.” Emma was also commanded by this 
revelation to act as scribe for her husband, and to compile an 
anthology of sacred hymns for the use of the new church. 

The Church began to make numerous converts. Nancy Towle, 
a pious traveler who preached concerning Jesus Christ wherever 
people would listen to her in America and in Europe, visited 
Kirtland, Ohio, a few months after Joseph Smith established 
himself there. She thus described the contents of the community: 
“Of their numbers, I found, ministers, of different persuasions : 
and some, it appeared, who had once been eminent for piety. I 
found, also, many men, of both influence and wealth. Husbands, 
who had left their wives: and wives, that had left their husbands. 
—Children, that had left their parents: and parents, their chil- 
dren ;—that they might be ‘accounted worthy, as they said, ‘to 
escape all the things that should come to pass and to stand before 
the Son of Man.” As soon as a man was converted he was sent 
forth to convert others, and by this means the Church rapidly 
grew in numbers, until converts from New York and other eastern 
states began to arrive in Kirtland daily. Curiosity concerning the 
new religion was aroused in the neighborhood, and on Sundays all 
the roads leading to Kirtland were crowded with farm waggons 
on their way to the new Church to hear the new Prophet. There 
was little entertainment in the villages around Kirtland, and a 
new Prophet was of major importance. The only other preachers 
who visited the neighborhood were saddle-bag missionaries, who, 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 1S 


in the course of their circuit, arrived perhaps once a month at 
each village. 

The people among whom the early Mormon missionaries 
worked were ready for what they had to offer. Every village had 
its boy who had had a vision or its girl who had seen God. The 
neighbors crowded into a farm house where a child of ten or 
twelve was forced to repeat and to repeat what he had seen in the 
night, until finally what had been a dream of unusual mystic force 
became by elaboration and repetition a visitation from heaven. 
Then came the Mormons with their Prophet who had had just 
such visions on a grander scale, with tales of golden plates and 
promised lands, with daily revelations from God and repeated 
visits from angels. These things corresponded sufficiently with 
the experience of their converts to warrant belief and differed 
enough to allow room for faith in a divinity they knew not of. 
There is no better example of the combination of faith with 
mistrust, of the will to believe hampered by a crude but practical 
knowledge of human nature, than the pathetic statement of 
Andrews Tyler, an early Mormon convert, to his daughter, who 
had been converted by Mormon missionaries: Tyler’s son wrote: 
“His remarks to my sister were to the effect that if this new 
religion was true, it was the best religion in the world, but, if 
false, it was the worst. “These men,’ said he, ‘know whether it 
is true or false, but I do not.’”’ Andrews Tyler had threatened 
to shoot any Mormon elder who baptized his daughter. When 
he expressed this violent threat to Hyrum Smith, the brother of 
the Prophet, who was preaching in the neighborhood, Hyrum 
answered: “Mr. Tyler, we shall not baptize your daughter against 
your wishes. If our doctrine be true, which we testify it is, if you 
prevent your daughter from embracing it, the sin will be on your 
head, not on ours or your daughter’s.” This terrified Tyler. The 
responsibility was too much for him. His daughter was bap- 
tized, and soon afterwards he and the rest of his family joined 
the Mormons. 

There were many reasons for the rapid spread of Mormonism. 
One of these was the great zeal of its missionaries, who traveled 
everywhere without purse or scrip to preach the new revelation. 
A. great appeal was found in the embellishment of the future life 
so that it became almost eastern in its magnificence and at the 
same time as exclusive and snobbish as that of the Jews. The 
Mormons also offered the miracles of primitive Christianity and 


—ae 4 


~~. 


~. 


74 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


added to them extemporaneously from their own experience and 
circumstances. Another great source of the popularity of Mor- 
monism was the refuge which it offered as a new revelation from 
the confusion of the various Christian sects, which, by their mul- 
titude of petty distinctions, befuddled the simple minds of the 
country people. 

When men of education and clergymen of other denominations | 
laughed at the ideas of Mormonism, with its revelations and its 
latter-day miracles, the Mormons accepted their laughter with 
complacent resignation; for, they said, had not the savants of 
Rome, Athens, and Alexandria laughed derisively at Saint Paul? 
It was only another comforting parallel with the struggles and 
triumphs of the primitive Christians, whom the Mormons ad- 
mitted they were trying to emulate and to imitate. And there 
were millions of Christians, all sprung originally from the perse- 
verance of those early fathers of the Church. Surely, said the 
Mormons, it was a good omen when philosophers laughed. 

Clergymen of other denominations never ceased to write and to 
talk against the Mormons, for their claim to be the only true faith 
naturally appeared arrogant to other preachers. Also, the state- 
ments of the Mormon leaders in the pulpit were not calculated to 
make them friends among their competitors. One of the Mormon 
preachers said: “After a while, you have the beauty, the sub- 
limity of Catholicism. Look at the old mother, seated upon a 
scarlet-colored beast, boxing the ears of her daughters; and the 
Church of England in turn boxing the ears of the old mother, 
assisted by her other numerous offspring, and then mark the bitter 
contentions and bloody feuds among the children! O, have they 
not had a sublime time—a beautiful dish of suckertash. What 
a uniform course they have taken.” Joseph Smith was particu- 
larly fond of referring to the old established church as the whore 
of Babylon, an abomination in the sight of righteousness. 

The leaders of the Mormon Church took an interest in their 
followers’ temporal possessions as well as in their spiritual wel- 
fare, and Joseph Smith received a revelation from God that it 
was the duty of every rightful heir to the kingdom of heaven to 
give to the Church all the property that he did not need for his 
support. The perplexing problem arose of just how much a man 
needed, and it was met by an edict that a Mormon should con- 
secrate all his property to his bishop and then receive back from 
the bishop what he needed in order to live, which was determined 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 75 


by him and his bishop in conference. If they disagreed on this 
important point, the case was to be appealed to a council of high 
priests, of which Joseph Smith was a member. Smith was rather 
- anxious to make these deeds of consecration follow the letter of 
the law. He wrote to one of his bishops: “We again say . . . 
be sure to get a form according to law for securing a gift. We 
have found by examining the law that a gift cannot be retained 
without this. . . . You will remember that the power of agency 
must be signed by the wives as well as the husbands, and the 
Wives must be examined in the matter separate and apart from 
the husbands, the same as signing a deed, and a specification to 
that effect inserted at the bottom, by the justice before whom such 
acknowledgment is made, otherwise the power of attorney will 
be of no effect.” Many of his followers began to think that the 
Prophet was concerning himself too much with their finances, and 
some were bold enough to suggest that a Prophet’s function was 
purely spiritual. Brigham Young many years later defended the 
temporal interference of the Prophet with these arguments: 


_ “What were the feelings of the people, almost universally, in the 
infancy of this Church? Men of science and talent in this Church 
believed—or they said they believed—honestly, truly, and with all 
their hearts, that Joseph Smith did not understand anything about 
temporal matters. They believed he understood spiritual things— 
that he understood the Spirit of the Lord, and how to build up the 
spiritual kingdom among men; but when temporal matters were 
talked of, men were ready to decide at once, that they knew more 
than the Prophet about such matters; and they did so decide... . 
For men of principle, and seemingly of good sense, to believe the 
Prophet Joseph, who was inspired to build up the kingdom of God 
temporally as well as spiritually, did not know as much about a 
picayune as about God’s spiritual kingdom, about a farm as about 
the New Jerusalem, is folly in the extreme, it is nonsense in the 
superlative degree. Those who entertain such ideas ought to have 
their heads well combed, and subjected to a lively course of friction, 
that peradventure a little common sense might dawn upon their 
confused ideas. 

“Consult your own judgments in such matters. Do you think 
that God would set a man to lead his people who does not know 
as much about a picayune or a farm, as about God’s spiritual king- 
dom, or the New Jerusalem? Shame on those who would entertain 
such ideas, for they debase and corrupt the hearts of the community 
who imbibe them. According to the sentiments of some of the 


76 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Latter-day Saints, the Lord must have become wonderfully high- 
minded in the last days; I should think he had become too proud, 
according to their belief, to notice farms and merchandise, and 
other little affairs and transactions that pass around us. He used 
to notice the very hairs of our heads that fell, and the sparrows; 
He took care of the ravens, and watched over the children of Israel, 
and supplied all their temporal wants; but we say now, He does not 
condescend to such small matters, having given ws an understanding, 
and we know what to do. Are not these the feelings of the people? 
I could refer to some little things by way of example, but it would 
hit somebody rather too publicly.” ? 


But many of the early followers did not take this attitude, and it 
was found necessary to abandon consecration of property for a 
system of tithing, by which ten per cent. of a man’s possessions 
went to the Church when he joined it, and ten per cent. of his 
annual income was to be devoted to the Church. By this time 
Brigham Young had joined Joseph Smith, and it is said that his 
more practical mind worked out this system, which was more suc- 
cessful, since it allowed a man control of his own possessions and 
still insured the Church its revenue. However, since the tithe was 
purely voluntary, it was not always paid, and Brigham Young 
spent much of his time in the pulpit in later years urging his 
people to pay their tithing; usually, by exhortation, he was able 
to get it. One reason why the Church is wealthy to-day is that 
Brigham Young never tired of pointing out to his people that 
since all property came from the Lord originally, no one should 
hesitate to devote it to His glorification through the instrument 
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Joseph Smith also received a revelation from God granting real 
estate in Kirtland to him, to Sidney Rigdon, and to Oliver 
Cowdery. God also provided for Joseph Smith, Sen. The son 
ordained his father Patriarch of the Church, and for the occasion 
God issued a revelation saying that since the laborer is worthy 
of his hire, Joseph Smith, Sen., for his services as Patriarch 
should receive “ten dollars per week and expenses.” Later he 
received three dollars per blessing, for it was his main duty to 
issue blessings. 

Meanwhile, those who had visited Missouri to convert the In- 
_dians sent back to their Prophet glowing reports of the fertility 
of the soil, and Joseph received a revelation from God that the 

2 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp. 74-76. 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 77 


future Zion would be in Jackson County, Missouri. One night 
in March, 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were dragged 
from their beds and tarred and feathered by a mob of infuriated 
Baptists, Campbellites, and Methodists. A week later they left 
for a tour of inspection of the Saints in Missouri. Although he 













































































A Mos or Reticious CoMPETITORS TARRING AND FEATHERING 
JosEPH SMITH 


From a contemporary woodcut 


was favorably impressed with the location of the future Zion, 
Joseph Smith returned to Kirtland, Ohio, where he had plenty to 
occupy him, and left others to build up Zion in Missouri. 

One of the Prophet’s main occupations at this time was a new 
translation of the Bible, which he was making with the aid of 
some ancient papyrus. This had come into his possession in a 


renee 


78 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


singularly unbiblical manner. Mr. Michael H. Chandler, who 
was apparently a traveling showman, received some ancient Egyp- 
tian mummies, wrapped in papyrus, from his nephew in Paris. 
The nephew, a French traveler and explorer, had found them in 
the catacombs of Thebes, so he said. Chandler, the Mormons 
said, tried to get his papyrus translated by scholars in Philadel- 
phia, but they were unable to translate the characters to his satis- 
faction. He had heard of the ascension of a new prophet in the 
west who could decipher strange languages and reveal hidden 
things, so he sold seven of his mummies and several sheets of 
papyrus to pay his traveling expenses, and arrived in Kirtland, 
Ohio, with four remaining mummies and several rolls of papyrus. 
Joseph Smith, under the inspiration of the Almighty, interpreted 
some of the ancient writings to the satisfaction of Mr. Chandler, 
and some friends of the Prophet purchased mummies and papyrus 
for him. Michael Chandler gave the’ Prophet the following 
testimonial, which is reproduced in the History of the Church as 
Mr. Chandler wrote it: 


“Kirtland, July 6, 1835. 
“This is to make known to all who may be desirous, concerning 
the knowledge of Mr. Joseph Smith, Jun., in deciphering the ancient 
Egyptian hieroglyphic characters in my possession, which I have, in 
many eminent cities, showed to the most learned; and, from the in- 
formation that I could ever learn, or meet with, I find that of Mr. 

Joseph Smith, Jun., to correspond in the most minute matters. 
“MicHaEL H. CHANDLER, 
“Traveling with, and proprietor of, Egyptian mummies.” 


As soon as the mummies came into his possession, Joseph 
Smith, with the aid of several of his disciples, examined them 
more closely, and to their joy they discovered that the papyrus 
contained the writings of Abraham, of Israel, and Joseph, of 
Egypt. Joseph Smith set to work immediately to translate them. 
The mummies were always retained in the Smith household and 
were exhibited for twenty-five cents by the Prophet’s mother. 
Josiah Quincy, who visited Joseph Smith some years later at 
Nauvoo, Illinois, described the exhibition of the mummies in his 
book, Figures of the Past: 


““And now come with me,’ said the prophet, ‘and I will show you 


the curiosities.’ So saying, he led the way to a lower room, where 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE Pe 


sat a venerable and respectable-looking lady. ‘This is my mother, 
gentlemen. The curiosities we shall see belong to her. They were 
purchased with her own money, at a cost of six thousand dollars.’ 
. .. Lhere were some pine presses fixed against the wall of the 
room. ‘These receptacles Smith opened, and disclosed four human 
bodies, shrunken and black with age. ‘There are mummies,’ said 
the exhibitor. ‘I want you to look at that little runt of a fellow 
over there. He was a great man in his day. Why, that was Pharaoh 
Necho, King of Egypt!’ Some parchments inscribed with hiero- 
glyphics were then offered us. They were preserved under glass 


and handled with great respect. ‘That is the handwriting of Abra- 


ham, the Father of the Faithful,’ said the prophet. ‘This is the 
autograph of Moses, and these lines were written by his brother 
Aaron. Here we have the earliest account of the Creation, from 
which Moses composed the First Book of Genesis.’ The parchment 
last referred to showed a rude drawing of a man and woman, and 
a serpent walking upon a pair of legs. I ventured to doubt the 
propriety of providing the reptile in question with this unusual 
means of locomotion. ‘Why, that’s as plain as a pikestaff,’ was the 
rejoinder. ‘Before the Fall snakes always went about on legs, just 
like chickens. They were deprived of them, in punishment for 
their agency in the ruin of man.’ We were further assured that 
the Prophet was the only mortal who could translate these mys- 
terious writings, and that his power was given by direct inspira- 
tion. . . . Monarchs, patriarchs, and parchments were very well in 
their way ; but this was clearly the nineteenth century, when prophets 
must get a living and provide for their relations. ‘Gentlemen,’ said 
this bourgeois Mohammed, as he closed the cabinets, ‘those who 
see these curiosities generally pay my mother a quarter of a dol- 
lar. 


Joseph’s mother used to describe a club wrapped in dark cloths 

as “‘the leg of Pharaoh’s daughter, the one that saved Moses.” 
While he was translating from Egyptian papyrus, Joseph 

Smith studied Hebrew at Kirtland in a school he established for 


Ree 


veer 


—— 


the purpose of giving himself and his elders an opportunity to ~ 
read the Bible in the original. A Mr. Seixas was brought to / 


Kirtland from a theological seminary at Hudson, Ohio, and 
Joseph Smith and his associates spent two hours each day under 
his tutelage. 

Besides his other work Joseph Smith was receiving revelations 
from God almost daily. The most famous of these was that 
which prohibited the use of tobacco, liquor, coffee, tea, and other 
hot drinks, and which went by the name of the “Word of 


80 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Wisdom.” Some years later Brigham Young told the origin of 
this revelation: 


“T think J am as well acquainted with the circumstances which 
led to the giving of the Word of Wisdom as any man in the Church, 
although I was not present at the time to witness them. The first 
school of the prophets was held in a small room situated over the 
Prophet Joseph’s kitchen. . . . Over/this kitchen was situated the 
room in which the Prophet received revelations and in which he in- 
structed the brethren. The brethren came to that place for hun- 
dreds of miles to attend school in a little room probably no larger 
than eleven by fourteen. When they assembled together in this 
room after breakfast, the first they did was to light their pipes, and, 
while smoking, talk about the great things of the kingdom, and spit 
all over the room, and as soon as the pipe was out of their mouths 
a large chew of tobacco would then be taken. Often when the 
Prophet entered the room to give the school instructions he would 
find himself in a cloud of tobacco smoke. This, and the complaints 
of his wife at having to clean so filthy a floor, made the Prophet 
think upon the matter, and he inquired of the Lord relating to the 
conduct of the Elders in using tobacco, and the revelation known 
as the Word of Wisdom was the result.” ® 


Another old member of the Church said that Mrs. Emma Smith 
came into the conference room one day, looked at the floor, and 
remarked ironically, “It would be a good thing if a revelation 
could be had declaring the use of tobacco a sin and commanding 
its suppression.” The brethren joked about it and suggested in 
retaliation that God’s revelation should also prohibit the use of 
tea and coffee. A few days later Joseph Smith received the 
following advice from God, which He made clear was not com- 
pulsory but expedient : 


“That inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among 
you, behold it is not good, neither meet in the sight of your Father, 
only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments 
before Him. 

“And, behold, this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape 
of the vine, of your own make. 

“And, again, strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the wash- 
ing of your bodies. 

“And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 12, p. 158. 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE | 81 


and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick 
cattle, to be used with judgment and skill. 
“And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly.” 


God also told His children to be sparing in their use of meat, 
especially in summer. 

In the revelations, which were now delivered to Joseph Smith 
in rapid succession, God chose to refer to the Prophet and his 
associates by unusual spiritual nicknames. Joseph was some- 
times called Enoch and sometimes Gazelam; Sidney Rigdon 
sometimes called Horah and sometimes Olihah; and Martin 
Harris was sometimes referred to from heaven by the name of 
Shalemanasseh, and then again by that of Mahemson. Kirtland, 
Ohio, was known as Shinehah. Occasionally God called Joseph 
Smith Baurak Ale. The gift of tongues was now entitled to a 
place in the ritual permanently and was exercised frequently in 
the public meetings. Upon one occasion a woman seized with the 
gift of tongues rose in the congregation and babbled: “Mela, 
meli, melee.” A young boy immediately jumped up and inter- 
preted her words as meaning: “My leg, my thigh, my knee.’”’ The 
congregation was shocked, for it was never admitted publicly in 
those days that women had legs, thighs, and knees. The inter- 
pretative boy was called before the High Council of the Church. 
He insisted that his interpretation was dictated by “the Spirit,” 
but he did not say of what. He was dismissed with a reprimand. 

Healing was practised regularly, and Joseph Smith’s miracles 
were almost of daily occurrence. He exercised moderation in 
miracles, however, with those who were not yet convinced of his 
divinity. A Campbellite clergyman visited the Prophet and said, 
“Mr. Smith, I want to know the truth, and when I am convinced, 
I will spend all my talents and time in defending and spreading 
the doctrines of your religion, and I will give you to understand 
that to convince me is equivalent to convincing all my society, 
amounting to several hundreds.” The prospect sounded inter- 
esting to the Prophet, and he began to expound the Mormon 
doctrine. “Oh, this is not the evidence I want,” the preacher 
interrupted, “the evidence I wish to have is a notable miracle; I 
want to see some powerful manifestations of the power of God 

. and if you will not perform a miracle of this kind, then I 
am your worst and bitterest enemy.” “Well,” asked Joseph, 
“what will you have done? Will you be struck blind, or dumb? 


82 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Will you be paralyzed, or will you have one hand withered? Take 
your choice, choose which you please, and in the name of the 
Lord Jesus Christ it shall be done.” ‘That is not the kind of 
miracle I want,’ the preacher answered. “Then, sir,” Joseph 
said, “I can perform none, I am not going to bring any trouble 
upon anybody else, sir, to convince you.” 

Although he professed belief in healing, Brigham Young never 
practised it much. With characteristic common sense he once ex- 
pressed in a sermon his attitude towards healing by the laying 
on of hands: 


“Tf a person afflicted with a cancer should come to me and ask 
me to heal him, I would rather go to the grave-yard and try to raise 
a dead person, comparatively speaking. But supposing we were 
traveling in the mountains, and all we had or could get, in the shape 
of nourishment, was a little venison, and one or two were taken 
sick, without anything in the world in the shape of healing medicine 
within our reach, what should we do? According to my faith, ask 
the Lord Almighty to send an angel to heal the sick. This is our 
privilege, when so situated that we cannot get anything to help our- 
selves. Then the Lord and his servants can do all. But it is my 
duty to do when I have it in my power.” * 


Brigham Young also expressed it as his opinion that when heal- 
ing by faith failed, the Lord did not mean the subject to be 
healed. A convert from Europe who had lost a leg once came to 
Brigham Young in Salt Lake City and asked that his leg be 
restored. Brigham Young is said to have answered: “It would 
be easy for me to give you another leg, but it is my duty to 
explain to you the consequences. You are now well advanced in 
life. If I give you another leg, you will indeed have two legs — 
until you die, which will be a great convenience; but in the resur-_ 
rection, not only will the leg which you lost rise and be united to | 


your body, but also the one which I now give you; thus you | 


will be encumbered with three legs throughout eternity. It is 


’ 


for you to decide whether you would prefer the transient incon- | 


venience of getting along with one leg till you die, or the de- | 


formity of an extra leg forever.” The pilgrim naturally con-/ 
cluded to remain maimed in this life that he might be perfect 
_in that which was to come. This story has sometimes been used 
by anti-Mormon writers to indicate Brigham Young’s ludicrous 


4 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 25. 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 83 


and superstitious ignorance, but they forget to mention that! 

‘he had a highly developed sense of humor, which he always de- 

-\lighted to use on those of his followers who made ridiculous de 
‘mands upon his powers. 

\ Occasionally Joseph Smith asked God for a revelation hs 
advice concerning the private affairs of particular parishioners. 
Newell Knight, who had already been healed once by a miracle, 
took a fancy to a quiet girl in Kirtland, named Lydia. She was 
married to a man who had deserted her, and Newell Knight’s 
wife had died. He asked her one day why they should not com- 
fort each other. Since Lydia knew that Newell knew that she 
already had a husband, she left the room insulted and ashamed 
of him. He explained a few days later that his intentions were 
honorable, that her husband had deserted her for three years, and 
that therefore she was legally free. But she considered herself 
spiritually bound. At that point the matter entered the province 
of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Newell Knight, who knew the 

_ Prophet well, took it up with Smith, who spoke to God about it, 
and the answer sent down from heaven was that Lydia was 
free from her first husband, and that, in fact, it would be pleas- 
ing to God if Newell Knight and Lydia were married. In grati- 
tude, Lydia, who had loved Newell all the time, fell on her knees, 
and “poured out her soul in thanksgiving to God for His precious 
blessings.” Soon afterwards she heard that her first husband 
had died, and she took this as “a convincing testimony of the 
truth of Joseph’s word.” ® 

One of the favorite subjects of revelation in the days when 
Joseph Smith’s spiritual manifestations were most active was 
that of the millennium, accompanied by the Second Coming of 
Christ. The Shakers, the Millerites, and Jemima Wilkinson were 
making minatory millennial predictions, and Joseph Smith yielded 
to the temptation to predict the Second Coming, but he was wise 
enough to set no fixed date. He once discussed the matter with 
God, and a voice spoke into his ear: “Joseph, my son, if thou 
livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face 
of the Son of Man: therefore let this suffice, and trouble me 
no more on this matter.” This was indefinite enough in time, 
but to make it absolutely proof against reaction upon himself, 
the Prophet added this note: “I was left thus, without being 
able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of 

5 IT ydia Knight’s History, pp. 27-29. 


84 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should 
die and thus see His face.” 

On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon did 
see Christ sitting on the right hand of God at Kirtland, Ohio. 
In this joint vision they were instructed that there were three 
orders of eternal bliss. The celestial order was conferred only 
on devout believers such as Smith, Rigdon, and their most faith- 
ful followers: “These shall dwell in the presence of God and His 
Christ for ever and ever.” Then there was the terrestrial order, 
consisting of those who received the testimony of Jesus after 
they had died, and their boon differed from that of the celestial 
inhabitants ‘in glory as the moon differs from the sun.” ‘The 
telestial order came one grade below the terrestrial and consisted 
of people who had never accepted the testimony of Jesus, such as 
the Jews, who would only be saved from eternal damnation in the 
last resurrection. Since there was to be a final resurrection, it 
was necessary to have some people left to resurrect. All who did 
not fit into one of these classes were doomed to a Mormon hell 
with real fire burning for eternity. One of the faithful brethren 
~who saw Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon when they came out 
of this joint revelation said that, “Joseph appeared as strong as 
a lion, but Sidney seemed as weak as water, and Joseph, noticing 
his partner’s condition smiled and said, ‘Brother Sidney is not 
as used to it as I am.’”’ 

The new converts seemed to accept these revelations and doc-: 
trines with faith, no matter how eccentric the conditions under 
which they were received or promulgated. Occasionally some 
one revolted. One family apostatized because they were at the 
Prophet’s house when he came down from the translating room 
and began immediately to play with his children on the floor. 
They thought a decent interval should have been observed be- 
tween God and toys. Joseph was finding it a great burden to be 
a prophet for twenty-four hours each day, and he refused to do 
so, as this entry in his diary indicates: ‘“This morning I read 
German, and visited with a brother and sister from Michigan, 
who thought that ‘a prophet is always a prophet’; but I told 
them that a prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as 
such. .. . At four in the afternoon, I went out with my little 
Frederick to exercise myself by sliding on the ice.” 

There was the case of the doubting Simonds Ryder, who was 
called upon by the Lord through Joseph Smith to go forth and 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 85 


preach the Gospel. But the Lord spelled his name Rider instead 
of Ryder, and this led him to doubt the divine origin of the 
call, for, he argued, if the spirit through which he had been 
called could err in the matter of spelling his name, it might also 
have erred in calling him to abandon his.home and go forth with- 
out purse or scrip as a missionary. Another convert announced 
one day that he knew Joseph Smith was a false prophet and that 
the Book of Mormon was a fraud. When he was asked his rea- 
son, he answered: ‘Why, he says, if a man commit adultery, he 
shall apostatize; and I have done it, and have not apostatized.”’ 

There were also several minor schisms at Kirtland. A man 
named Hoten set up an independent church of ten members. 
They pretended to share all possessions in common; one day the 
bishop, who had charge of temporal affairs, charged the president 
of the new church with visiting his pork barrel without permis- 
sion, and the president retaliated by charging the bishop with 
visiting his wife. The church broke up in disorder. 

When people began to realize the ease and comfort of prophecy, 
rival prophets arose, and Joseph Smith found it necessary to 
insist that to be binding all revelations must come through 
him. One of Joseph’s rivals was a sixteen-year-old boy named 
James Collins Brewster, who was receiving revelations and con- 
verting members of his family and neighbors. Joseph referred 
to him contemptuously in his diary as “that Brewster boy,” and 
added: “If God ever called me, or spake by my mouth, or gave 
me a revelation, he never gave revelations to that Brewster boy 
or any of the Brewster race.’ That Brewster boy also wrote 
a book, which he called The Book of Esdras, and Smith wrote 
of it: “Brewster showed me the manuscript he had been writing. 
I inquired of the Lord, and the Lord told me the book was not 
true—it was not of Him.’ There was also Elder Sydney Rob- 
erts, who was charged before the High Council with “having 
a revelation that a certain brother must give him a suit of 
clothes and a gold watch, the best that could be had; also saluting 
the sisters with what he calls a holy kiss.” He was told 
that he could retain his membership in the Church, if he would 
confess his error, but he stubbornly declared that “he knew the 
revelations he had spoken were from God,” and he was therefore 
excommunicated. 

Martin Harris was unconsciously a rival of Joseph’s. By his 
simplicity he embarrassed the true Prophet very much with fre- 


86 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


quent predictions to the townspeople that Christ would be seen 
by the faithful in fifteen years, or that within four years not 
a wicked person would be left in the United States. He had 
also openly accused the Prophet of getting drunk while trans- 
lating the Book of Mormon, and it became necessary to expel 
him from the Church. Many years later Martin Harris repented 
of his sins, and Brigham Young raised a subscription to bring 
him to Utah. Elder Stevenson was sent to Kirtland, where 
Harris was still living, to bring the old man to Salt Lake City. 
On the way west Harris was used as an advertisement for Mor- 
monism. At Chicago he appeared before several gatherings of 
people who were anxious to see a man who had seen an angel 
and the golden plates of the Book of Mormon. He was then 
eighty years old, and when he arrived in Salt Lake City, he 
testified before a huge congregation that the Book of Mormon 
was of divine origin. At a meeting in Salt Lake City Sister 
M. H. Kimball offered on behalf of the 15th Ward Relief 
Society to buy Brother Harris a new set of artificial teeth, and 
to have them made to order. ‘No, sisters,’ Martin Harris re- 
plied, “I thank you for your kindness, but I shall not live 
long. Take the money and give it to the poor.” When he was 
driven about Salt Lake City and its suburbs, he was impressed 
with the gorgeous view, and, according to his companion, Elder 
Stevenson, he said, “Who would have thought that the Book of 
Mormon would have done all this!’ Apparently he was at last 
satisfied that his investment had been profitable, at least to others; 
he lived in Cache Valley, Utah, until he was ninety. A copy of ~ 
the Book of Mormon was buried with him. 

Even Sidney Rigdon could not resist the temptation to rival 
the Prophet. While Joseph Smith was away from Kirtland, 
Rigdon prophesied that the keys of the kingdom had been taken 
from the people and would not be returned until they built 
Elder Sidney Rigdon a new house. Hyrum Smith doubted the 
truth of this divine revelation, and he went for his brother, the 
Prophet. Sidney Rigdon was “delivered over to the buffetings of 
Satan.”’ The Devil dragged him out of bed three times in one 
night, he said later. Finally he was granted his former position 
of trust. 

Brigham Young, from the moment he joined the Church, re- 
mained steadfast in his professed faith and defended the Prophet 
against all apostates. Very often he must have felt that what 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 87 


Joseph Smith did was inexpedient or eccentric, but he told his 
congregation later that only once did he experience disagree- 
ment with the dictates of the Prophet, and he told how he over- 
came that temptation: 


“T can tell the people that once in my life I felt a want of con- 
fidence in Brother Joseph Smith, soon after I became acquainted 
with him. It was not concerning religious matters—it was not about 
his revelations—but it was in relation to his financiering—to his 
managing the temporal affairs which he undertook. A feeling came 
over me that Joseph was not right in his financial management, 
though I presume the feeling did not last sixty seconds, and per- 
haps not thirty. But that feeling came on me once and once only, 
from the time I first knew him to the day of his death. It gave me 
sorrow of heart, and I clearly saw and understood, by the spirit of 
revelation manifested to me, that if I was to harbor a thought in 
my heart that Joseph could be wrong in anything, I would begin to 
lose confidence in him, and that feeling would grow from step to 
step, and from one degree to another, until at last I would have 
the same lack of confidence in his being the mouthpiece for the 
Almighty, and I would be left, as Brother Hooper observed, upon 
the brink of the precipice, ready to plunge into what we may call 
the gulf of infidelity, ready to believe neither in God nor His 
servants, and to say that there is no God, or, if there is, we do not 
know anything about Him; that we are here, and by and bye shall 
go from here, and that is all we shall know. . Though I ad- 
mitted in my feelings and knew all the time that Joseph was a 
human being and subject to err, still it was none of my business to 
look after his faults... . 

“Tt was not for me to question whether Joseph was dictated by 
the Lord at all times and under all circumstances or not... . He 
was called of God. God dictated him, and if He had a mind to 
leave him to himself and let him commit an error, that was no 
business of mine. . . . He was God’s servant and not mine. He 
did not belong to the people but to the Lord, and was doing the 
work of the Lord, and if He should suffer him to lead the people 
astray, it would be because they ought to be led astray. If he 
should suffer them to be chastised, and some of them destroyed, 
it would be because they deserved it, or to accomplish some righteous 
purpose. That was my faith, and it is my faith still. I know 
that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God, that this is the Gospel of 
salvation, and if you do not believe it you will be damned, every 
one of you. That is one of the most important sermons that ever 
was preached.” ® 


6 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 297-208. 


88 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


This sermon was one of the most important Brigham Young ever 
preached, because it helps so much to explain how a man of such 
a practical mind as Brigham Young’s could have accepted with 
any sincerity the pretensions of Joseph Smith. Whenever Brig- 
ham Young had doubts of Joseph Smith, as he must have had 
more often than he cared to admit, he dismissed them with the 
argument that, granting Joseph Smith inspired of God, which 
Brigham Young had committed himself to grant, when Joseph 
Smith did something that appeared wrong, it was in reality 
.something dark and mysterious in the back of the Lord’s head. 
Of course, it was taking a great step to grant that Joseph Smith 
was inspired by God, but Brigham Young had taken that 
step, and he could not turn back without destroying his faith 
completely. The whole fabric of his faith would unravel if he 
began to pull at that stitch, so he tucked it in carefully and de- 
cided to call the cloth perfect. He may have done that sincerely 
without difficulty, for Brigham Young’s idea of God had always 
been of a being with “body, parts, and passions,” and it re- 
quired less strain on his type of imagination to believe in Joseph 
Smith than to believe in only an uncommunicative abstraction. 
Joseph was always doing things that appeared ungodly, or at 
least ungodlike, it was true, but those were up to the Lord to 
worry about, who was his master, rather than Brigham Young, 
who was his servant. Brigham Young once told his people: “I 
never argued the least against anything Joseph proposed, but if 
I could not see or understand it, I handed it over to the Lord. 
There is my counsel to you, my brethren and sisters. . . . What 
did I do? I handed this over to the Lord in my feelings, and 
said I, ‘I will wait until the Spirit of God manifests to me, for 
or against.’ I did not judge the matter, I did not argue against 
it, not in the least.” And the Spirit of God invariably seemed 
to take the affirmative in favor of Joseph Smith. It is easy to 
see that Brigham Young was a model convert. Of course, when 
reading these statements which Brigham Young made from the 
pulpit many years after the death of Joseph Smith, we must 
consider that he realized fully the practical value to himself of 
an attitude of unquestioning obedience upon the part of his 
followers. 

Soon after he joined Joseph Smith Brigham Young proved 
very useful as defendant of the Prophet against apostates and 
dissenters. A secret meeting was held at Kirtland for the pur- 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 89 


pose of deposing Joseph Smith and making David Whitmer head 
of the Church. Brigham Young defended the Prophet so vigor- 
ously in this meeting that he almost suffered physical violence. 
“Jacob Bump,” Brigham Young wrote, “‘an old pugilist, was so 
exasperated that he could not be still. Some of the brethren near 
him put their hands on him, and requested him to be quiet; but 
he writhed and twisted his arms and body saying, ‘How can I 
keep my hands off that man?’ I told him if he thought it would 
give him any relief he might lay them on.” The meeting ad- 
journed without any action against Smith. Upon another oc- 
casion Brigham Young himself used threats of violence in de- 
fense of his Prophet. He told the incident in the short history 
of himself which he wrote for the Church publications: 


“A man named Hawley, while plowing his field in the State of 
New York, had an impression rest down on his mind, with great 
weight, that he must go to Kirtland and tell Joseph Smith that the 
Lord had rejected him as a Prophet. He accordingly started right 
off, with his bare feet, and, on arriving in Kirtland, told Joseph 
that the Lord had rejected him for allowing John Noah, a Prophet 
of God, to be cut off from the Church, and for allowing the women 
to wear caps and the men to wear cushions on their coat sleeves. 
He was called up before the Bishops’ court and disfellowshipped. 

“He went through the streets of Kirtland one morning after mid- 
night and cried, ‘Woe! woe! unto the inhabitants of this place.’ I 
put my pants and shoes on, took my cow-hide, went out, and laying 
hold of him, jerked him round, and assured him that if he did not 
stop his noise and let the people enjoy their sleep without interrup- 
tion, I would cow-hide him on the spot, for we had the Lord’s 
Prophet right here, and we did not want the Devil’s prophet yelling 
around the streets. The nuisance was forthwith abated.” * 


At Kirtland Brigham Young practised his old trades of 
painter, glazier, and carpenter, and he built and adorned many 
houses for the faithful. In February of 1834 he was married by 
Sidney Rigdon to Mary Ann Angel, a Kirtland girl. During the 
fall and winter he built houses and painted them, attended Hebrew 
school and made himself generally useful to the Prophet. During 
the spring and summer he traveled as a missionary throughout the 
eastern United States, and as a missionary Brigham Young was 
more successful than any of his brethren. He had a practical 


7 Millennial Star, vol. 25, p. 487. 


90 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


F > 
‘ ™ 
\ 


common sense combined with intense spiritual fervor and a con- | 
-viction of his own knowledge of absolute truth that was almost | 
irresistible for converts. In later years Brigham Young was/ 
proud of his early missionary success. He once said in a sermon: 


“T know that when I have travelled with some of the Twelve, and 
one of them has asked for breakfast, dinner, supper, or lodging, we 
have been refused dozens of times. Now, you may think that I am 
going to boast a little; 1 will brag a little of my own tact and 
talent. When others would ask, we would often be refused a 
morsel of something to eat, and so we would go from house to 
house; but when I had the privilege of asking, I never was turned 

away—no, not a single time. 

“Would I go into the house and say to them, ‘I am a “Mormon” 
Elder; will you feed me?’ It was none of their business who I 
was. But when I asked, ‘Will you give me something to eat?’ the 
reply was, invariably, ‘Yes’ And we would sit, and talk, and 
sing, and make ourselves familiar and agreeable; and before our 
departure, after they had learned who we were, they would fre- 
quently ask, ‘Will you not stay and preach for us? and proffer to 
gather in the members of their family and their neighbors; and the 
feeling would be, ‘Well, if this is “Mormonism,” I will feed all the 
“Mormon” Elders that come.’ Whereas, if I had said, ‘I am a 
“Mormon” Elder; will you feed me?’ the answer would often have 
been, ‘No: out of my house.’ ” § 


Sometimes it was difficult for Brigham Young to keep order 
in the meetings. At Richmond, Massachusetts, a particularly un- 
ruly congregation shouted him down, and when he reproved them, 
began to burn odoriferous lucifer matches. Brigham Young told 
them that he would like to send Indians from the West to civilize 
them, whereupon, at the next meeting some one threw brimstone 
into the fire and almost succeeded in suffocating Brigham Young | 
and his companion, George A. Smith. He suffered other hard- 
ships on his missionary tours, and one of them was the lack of 
sufficient clothes. During one winter trip through New England 
he wore a cradle quilt for a coat. Sometimes the accommoda- 
tions offered by friendly farmers were not good. Brigham Young 
once told of an unfortunate night spent in an eastern farmhouse: 
“Brother George A. Smith and I stayed over night with Brother 
Atkinson, who lived in a very large frame house, said to have 
stood 150 years, which was so infested with bed-bugs that we 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 305. 





THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 91 


could not sleep. Brother George A. Smith gave it as his legal 
opinion that there were bed-bugs there which had danced to the 
music at the battle of Trenton, as their heads were perfectly 
gray. We took our blankets and retreated to the further end of 
the room, and as the bugs followed us, I lit a candle, and as they 
approached, caught them and burnt them in the candle, and thus 
spent the night.” ° Brigham Young visited most of his cousins 
and other relatives and succeeded in converting the majority of 
his family. | 

In February, 1835, Joseph Smith organized the council of the 
Twelve Apostles, and Brigham Young was appointed one of them. 
Although he now occupied an important position in the hierarchy 
of the Church, Brigham Young was not one of the close advisers 
of the Prophet. When Joseph Smith drew up a plan for the new 
city of Kirtland, there was a Rigdon Street, a Pratt Street, a 
Smith Street, a Joseph Street, a Hyrum Street, and a street 
named for every one of Joseph’s brothers, but there was no 
Brigham Street or Young Avenue. 


III 


One of the most important projects of the Church at Kirtland 
was the construction of a Temple for the proper worship of 
God. God had given Joseph Smith a revelation in which he told 
him what the dimensions of His house should be: ‘Verily I say 
unto you,” said God, “‘that it shall be built fifty-five by sixty-five 
feet in width thereof and in length thereof, in the inner court.” 
Though God dictated the dimensions, Brigham Young did much 
of the actual labor, performing carpenter work while it was in 
the course of construction and painting it after it was built. 

In the revelation concerning the Temple God said that the 
building was not to commence until He gave the word. The Lord 
was apparently waiting for what was soon started in motion, a 
subscription for funds. Manna from heaven arrived in the form 
of John Tanner, a convert from New York. He had been healed 
of a lame leg by a Mormon elder, and he therefore felt called 
upon to sell his extensive property in New York State and live 
in Kirtland. He arrived there just as the mortgage on the Tem- 
ple ground was about to be foreclosed. It is said that a few days 
before his arrival the Prophet Joseph and his brethren had assem- 

9 Millennial Star, vol. 26, p. 280. 


92 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


bled in prayer-meeting and asked God to send them a brother 
with means to lift the mortgage. Perhaps this was so, but perhaps 
some one had whispered to Joseph Smith that John Tanner had 
just sold two large farms and 2,200 acres of valuable timber 
land. Nevertheless, the day after his arrival in Kirtland, Tanner 
was invited by the Prophet to meet with the High Council. The 
result of the meeting was that he lent Joseph Smith $2,000, and 
took his note, lent the Temple Committee $13,000 and took their 
note, and besides these loans made liberal donations to the Temple 
Fund. A short time later he signed a note for $30,000 worth of 
merchandise. And they made him an elder; they should have 
made him a saint. He has achieved, however, a species of canon- 
ization, for he is held up as an example of manly righteousness 
and noble obedience in Scraps of Biography, a book published by 
the Mormon Church for its young. 

With the help of God and John Tanner the Temple was finally 
completed, and elaborate dedication ceremonies were held, in the 
course of which Joseph Smith washed Brigham Young's feet, 
and Brigham Young “had the gift of tongues powerfully upon 
him.” The women were not admitted into the Temple while the 
washing and anointing was going on, and one of the eyewitnesses 
reported that this made them “right huffy.” They considered 
that they had cause to be “right huffy,’ besides their exclusion, 
for many of the elders are reported to have got inordinately 
drunk that night on sacramental liquor, and the Prophet is said 
to have needed considerable bracing up before he could face his 
wife Emma. David Whitmer testified that he saw angels present 
at the dedication, but others have testified that everybody was 
drunk enough to see anything. Joseph Smith said later that Jesus 
had been present at the ceremonies. 

While he was busy in the construction of the Temple, the 
Prophet was also busy organizing a bank. When he first arrived 
in Kirtland, the Prophet had opened a general store, but he found 
it impossible to make the business profitable. Brigham Young 
once explained the cause of failure: 


“Joseph goes to New York and buys $20,000 worth of goods, 
comes into Kirtland and commences to trade. In comes one of the 
brethren, ‘Brother Joseph, let me have a frock pattern for my wife.’ 
What if Joseph says, ‘No, I cannot without the money.’ The con- 
sequences would be, ‘He is no Prophet,’ says James. Pretty soon 
Thomas walks in. ‘Brother Joseph, will you trust me for a pair 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 93 


of boots?’ ‘No, I cannot let them go without the money.’ ‘Well,’ 
says Thomas, ‘Brother Joseph is no Prophet; I have found that 
out, and I am glad of it.’ After a while in comes Bill and Sister 
Susan. Says Bill, ‘Brother Joseph, I want a shawl, I have not got 
the money, but I wish you to trust me a week or a fortnight.” Well, 
Brother Joseph thinks the others have gone and apostatized, and he 
don’t know but these goods will make the whole Church do the 
same, so he lets Bill have a shawl. Bill walks off with it and meets 
a brother. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘what do you think of Brother Joseph ?’. 
‘O he is a first-rate man, and I fully believe he is a Prophet. See 
here, he has trusted me this shawl.’ Richard says, ‘I think I will 
go down and see if he won’t trust me some.’ In walks Richard. 
‘Brother Joseph, I want to trade about 20 dollars.’ ‘Well,’ says 
Joseph, ‘these goods will make the people apostatize; so over they 
go, they are of less value than the people.’ Richard gets his goods. 
Another makes a trade of 25 dollars, and so it goes. Joseph was 
a first-rate fellow with them all the time, provided he never would 
ask them to pay him. In this way it is easy for us to trade away 
a first-rate store of goods, and be in debt for them.” 7° 


This may have been a reason for Joseph Smith’s failure, but there 
were others, for he was no more of a success when he tried operat- 
ing a tannery and a steam sawmill. In his spare moments from 
revealing the will of the Lord, he also turned to real estate and 
speculated in land at Kirtland. Throughout the section of the 
country where he lived, real estate speculation was then a dis- 
ease, and Joseph Smith was smitten with it to his disadvantage. 
But the most important of all the Prophet’s financial enterprises 
was the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company. The 
capital stock of this cooperative bank was fixed at four million 
dollars. 

Early in 1837 the Saints began to speculate, apparently with 
Church money. Because of speculative land ventures and ex- 
cessive issues of paper money, financial conditions throughout the 
country were bad. The Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking 
Company issued paper money, which was finally refused by other 
banks, after Brigham Young had succeeded in disposing of 
$10,000 worth of it on a missionary trip to the eastern states in 
the interests of the company. The Church suddenly found itself 
on the verge of bankruptcy. In June, 1837, Joseph Smith re- 
signed his office of treasurer, and he blamed the subsequent fail- 
ure of the bank to general business conditions. When the bank 


10 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 215. 


94 - BRIGHAM YOUNG 


was established, the Prophet had implied that it was founded by 
the will of God, and therefore could not fail, but after its failure, 
he sdid he had only implied that it could not fail if it were 
conducted ‘‘on righteous principles.”” He blamed his associates 
in the enterprise for the lack of these principles. 

The people were thoroughly aroused by these financial dis- 
asters, and many began for the first time to deny the divine 
infallibility of Joseph Smith, Jr. Brigham Young had already 
been compelled to flee from Kirtland. He always maintained that 
his ardent defense of the Prophet on all occasions had caused 
threats against his life, but the real reason for his hurried de- 
parture was the rage of those who had lost their money in the 
bank speculation, in which Brigham Young was one of the leaders. 
A meeting was held in the Temple to investigate the Prophet and 
his chief associate, Sidney Rigdon. Sidney Rigdon was led into 
the meeting, for he claimed to be too ill to walk. He made a. 
sick man’s plea to the congregation, and the sentimental qualities 
of his oratory seemed to sway part of the congregation. After 
he had finished, there was a silence, during which he was slowly 
led out again. Joseph Smith then arose and declared that the 
reports of his conduct were false, and he threatened to excom- 
municate all those who circulated them. The opposition pre- 
sented its plausible case against him, but before its representative 
had finished, the Prophet suggested to the congregation that all 
those opposed to him should be excommunicated first and heard 
afterwards. During the great disorder which followed this 
naive suggestion, it was decided to postpone the hearing for a féw 
days. Meanwhile, towards dusk on the evening of January 12, 
1838, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, now somewhat cured of 
his ills, left Kirtland on horseback. 

In his journal Joseph Smith wrote: “January, 1838—A new 
year dawned upon the Church in Kirtland in all the bitterness of 
the spirit of apostate mobocracy; which continued to rage and 
grow hotter and hotter, until Elder Rigdon and myself were 
obliged to flee from its deadly influence, as did the Apostles and 
Prophets of old, and as Jesus said, ‘when they persecute you in 
one city, flee to another.’”” Although they may have followed 
the advice of Jesus, the immediate occasion for their hurried 
departure was the rumor that warrants were being issued for 
their arrest on charges of financial fraud. They traveled at 
night and fast, and they only waited for their families to join 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 95 


them after they had put sixty miles between them and the out- 
raged citizens of Kirtland. Before they had traveled far, they 
met Brigham Young, and the Prophet told him that he depended 
upon him to get money for them to continue their journey to 
Zion in Missouri. All three were so pressed for money, that the 
Prophet sought a job cutting and sawing wood at Dublin, In- 
diana. But they soon found easy relief. Brigham Young met 
a brother in the Church, Brother Tomlinson, who told him that 
he was trying to sell his farm, but that he could not get an offer. 
Brigham Young advised Brother Tomlinson to trust in the Lord 
and the authorities of the Church, and that he would soon be 
able to sell his farm. Within three days there was an offer for 
the farm, whether through the efforts of Brigham Young or the 
Lord, it is impossible to determine. “Brother Brigham,” Joseph 
Smith recorded in his journal, “told him that this was the mani- 
festation of the hand of the Lord to deliver Brother Joseph Smith 
from his present necessities.”” Brother Tomlinson thought so too, 
for he gave the Prophet $300. The three leaders continued their 
journey in covered waggons until they arrived with their families 
at Far West, Missouri, where the Mormons had a settlement. 

It was also said that some difficulty about a girl hastened the 
hegira from Kirtland. Oliver Cowdery, who was in a position 
to know, told some of the brethren that the Prophet had seduced 
an orphan who was living in his family, and Cowdery claimed 
that Joseph had confessed his sin to him. Finally, Cowdery with- 
drew this statement, but he did not do so very emphatically, as 
this testimonial indicates : 


“This may certify, that I heard Oliver Cowdery say, in my house, 
that Joseph Smith, Jr., never confessed to him, that he was guilty 
of the crime alleged against him, and Joseph asked if he ever said 
to him, (Oliver), that he confessed to any one that he, (Joseph) 
was guilty of the above crime, and Oliver, after some hesitation, 


answered no. 
“GEORGE W. Harris.” 12 


There is also evidence that polygamy was practised secretly at 
Kirtland. That this was charged against the Mormons during 
the Kirtland period is certain, for in the first edition of the Book 
of Doctrine and Covenants, there appears this significant state- 


11 The account of this episode is based on letters in the Elders’ Journal, of 
July, 1838, one of the earliest Mormon publications. 


96 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


ment: “Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached 
with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we 
believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman one 
husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry 
again.” In a list of questions about his religion which Joseph 
Smith answered in the Elders’ Journal for July, 1838, Question 7 
reads: 


“Do the Mormons believe in having more wives than one? 

“No, not at the same time. But they believe, that if their com- 
panion dies, they have a right to marry again. But we do dis- 
approve of the custom which has gained in the world, and has been 
practised among us, to our great mortification, of marrying in five 
or six weeks, or even in two or three months after the death of 
their companion. 

“We believe that due respect ought to be had, to the memory of 
the dead, and the feelings of both friends and children.” 


It is said that polygamy was first conceived by Joseph Smith 
while he was translating the Book of Abraham from his Egyptian 
papyrus. The lives of the Old Testament characters, especially 
those of Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon, made him wonder 
why he could not make his life sublime. He suddenly came to 
the conclusion that Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon were 
right, and that the world was wrong: the possession of more than 
one wife was not only permissible, but actually necessary to com- 
plete salvation. But the time was not yet ripe for public proclama- 
tion of this conclusion, even among his own followers. Joseph 
Smith stored it away in his mind for use when his people should 
become more enlightened and more righteous in the sight of 
heaven; meanwhile, however, he practised polygamy surrepti- 
tiously, for he himself had attained his full spiritual development. 


IV 


While Joseph Smith was carrying on extensive religious and 
financial operations in Kirtland, Ohio, a number of faithful Mor- 
mons were with great difficulty building up the revealed seat of 
Zion in Missouri. More than a thousand Saints were gathered 
at Independence in Jackson County, Missouri, and were living in 
the prosperity which they had created by clearing unsettled ter- 
ritory. But they were not the sole inhabitants of the county, and 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE =p 


before long their neighbors, who were not members of their 
Church, began to fear the encroachments of this new compact 
community, who progressed as a whole, and who could not be 
competed with by individuals. The growing conflict between the 
Mormons and their neighbors manifested itself at first in petty 
rows between individuals, and the most serious damage was that 
done by stones and brickbats, but by the summer of 1833 the non- 
Mormon citizens of Jackson County decided to organize and to 
get rid of their Mormon neighbors. Meetings were held and 
resolutions were passed, in which the main causes of complaint 
seemed to be that the Mormons boasted that Jackson County, 
Missouri, was the land God had promised them, and that all non- 
Mormons would eventually be forced to leave; and that eventually 
by the increase of their numbers and the power of their com- 
munity, the Mormons would control the county politics and courts. 
There were also accusations that the Mormons by fraternizing 
with the negro slaves and the Indians were causing these two 
subject races to resent the domination of their self-constituted 
superiors. The Mormons were asked to abandon the land they 
had developed and to leave the county. When they appealed to 
the governor, they were told to resort to the courts, and when 
they hired lawyers for that purpose, the citizens of Jackson 
County formed a mob and drove out families, burned houses, and 
destroyed the printing presses of the Mormon newspaper, the 
Star. After unsuccessful attempts at resistance, the Mormons 
were driven from their Zion into adjoining counties of Missouri. 

During this persecution Joseph Smith was at Kirtland, and 
when he was asked for advice and aid, he sent his brethren in 
Missouri consoling messages and revelatory commands. He 
urged them to hold on to the Promised Land as long as possible, 
and to refuse always to sell their rights to it, for God intended 
that they should eventually repossess it. He admitted that God 
had not yet revealed to him the exact reason for these afflictions, 
or the definite means by which the lost land would be recovered, 
but he said that it was evident that God had permitted the perse- 
cutions because of transgressions. He added that his heart ached 
to be with them, but that the Lord willed it otherwise. The 
Prophet had had some difficulty in persuading the Saints in Mis- 
souri to obey his commands from Kirtland, and he was able to 
point the moral that their afflictions were the result of their dis- 
obedience. 


98 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Early in May, 1834, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and a 
party of 130 men left Kirtland to aid their Missouri brethren. 
They had been planning this expedition for some time, but it was 
impossible to raise the necessary money until May. Once started, 
however, angels accompanied them all the way, according to 
Joseph Smith. When the expedition reached Liberty, Missouri, 
cholera broke out, and the Prophet attempted to heal some of his 
suffering followers by the laying on of hands, but he soon dis- 
covered that cholera was contagious and not religious, for he was 
stricken with it himself. He offered this ingenious reason for the 
sudden cessation of his healing activities: “At the commencement, 
I attempted to lay on hands for their recovery, but I quickly 
learned by painful experience, that when the great Jehovah de- 
crees destruction upon any people, and makes known His determi- 
nation, man must not attempt to stay His hand.” ‘The great 
Jehovah was apparently very angry with the Saints, because sixty- 
eight of the 130 contracted cholera and fourteen of them died of 
it. When the weakened expedition finally reached their brethren 
in Missouri, it was discovered that nothing could be done by such 
a small body of men, and the party was abandoned by Joseph 
Smith, every man receiving the Prophet’s permission to return 
home, but not the means to do so. 

On the way to Missouri Zion’s Army, as Joseph Smith called 
his expedition, passed a large tumulus. The Prophet ordered 
that it be opened, and it is said that the bones of a human skeleton 
were discovered. Joseph gathered his brethren around him and, 
pointing to the bones, said: ‘““He was a Lamanite, a large thick- 
set man, and a man of God. He was a warrior and chieftain 
under the great prophet Omandagus, who was known from the 
hill Cumorah to the Rocky Mountains. His name was Selph. 
He was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs, during 
the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites.” And, 
after this satisfactory explanation, the expedition continued on 
its way, comforted by a sight of one of the illustrious ancestors 
mentioned in the Book of Mormon. 

Brigham Young had an interesting encounter with a rattle- 
snake during the trip. As he was spreading his blankets for the 
night in the tall prairie grass, he found a rattlesnake close to 
his hand. He called one of his brethren and said to him: “Take 
this snake and carry it off and tell it not to come back again; and 
to say to its neighbors do not come into our camp to-night, lest 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 99 


some one might kill you.” Brigham’s friend took the snake, 
carried it some distance from the camp, told it to stay away, and 
asked it to spread the news to its friends, lest they get killed. 
The camp was not troubled any more that night with rattlesnakes, 
and another legend was added to Mormon history. 

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young returned to Kirtland after 
this short and unsuccessful trip to Missouri and continued the 
activities which have already been described, until, as we have 
seen, they were driven out by fear of arrest and compelled to join 
their Missouri brethren permanently. 

Meanwhile, the Saints in Missouri who had been driven from 
their Zion, established themselves in Caldwell County, at the town 
of Far West, and it was here that their Prophet joined them with 
Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon. As a result of the persecu- 
tions in Missouri the Church there had become divided; some of 
the leaders of the Missouri branch were tried by Joseph Smith 
for selling their land in Jackson County, contrary to the command 
of the Lord, and several were éxcommunicated. 

For several years the Mormons continued to move from county 
to county in Missouri and continued to be welcomed at first by 
the other inhabitants and finally driven out by them. The reasons 
for these persecutions were numerous. The Mormons have al- 
ways set them down to the innate and degenerate wickedness of 
their opponents, but the explanations of that wickedness are far 
more interesting than the mere assumption of it. The citizens 
of Clay County, Missouri, assembled in mass meeting, gave some 
of their reasons for opposition to the Mormons: 


“They are eastern men, whose manners, habits, customs, and even 
dialect, are essentially different from our own. They are non- 
slave-holders, and opposed to slavery, which in this peculiar period, 
when Abolitionism has reared its deformed and haggard visage in 
our land, is well calculated to excite deep and abiding prejudices in. 
any community where slavery is tolerated and protected... . 

“The religious tenets of this people are so different from the 
present churches of the age, that they always have, and always will, 
excite deep prejudices against them, in any populous country where 
they may locate... . 

“We do not contend that we have the least right, under the Con- 
stitution and laws of the country, to expel them by force. But we 
would be blind if we did not foresee that the first blow that is 
struck, at this moment of deep excitement, must and will speedily 


100 BRIGHAM YQUNG 


involve every individual in a war, bearing ruin, woe and desolation 
in its course. It matters but little how, where, or by whom, the war 
may begin, when the work of destruction commences, we must all 
be borne onward by the storm, or crushed beneath its fury.” 


Another, unexpressed, reason for opposition to the Mormons 
was the fact that they worked harder than their western neigh- 
bors, who preferred a fixed amount of loafing with their work. 
Accordingly, the Mormons usually prospered more rapidly and 
more regularly than their neighbors as a community and as indi- 
viduals. The result was the envy and jealousy of non-Mormons. _ 
~ That the Mormons were not slaveholders is true, but they had 
never expressed themselves as opposed to slavery. On the con- 
trary, Joseph Smith issued a statement in which he said, “I do 
not believe that the people of the North have any more right to 
say that the South shall not hold slaves, than the South have to 
say the North shall.” He then proceeded to defend negro 
slavery because the Bible acknowledges the practice of slavery, and 
he traced the descent of the southern negroes directly to the sons 
of Canaan, of whom the Bible says: ‘Cursed be Canaan; a 
servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” Joseph Smith 
added: “What could have been the design of the Almighty in this 
singular occurrence is not for me to say; but I can say, the curse 
is not yet taken off from the sons of Canaan, neither will be 
until it is affected by as great a power as caused it to come. . . .” 
He also advised the missionary elders “not to preach at all to 
slaves, until after their masters are converted, and then teach the 
masters to use them with kindness; remembering that they are 
accountable to God, and the servants are bound to serve their 
masters with singleness of heart, without murmuring.” More 
than this no slaveholder could ask. 

The Mormons were also accused by the people of Missouri of 
plotting with the Indians for the destruction of non-Mormons. 
This suspicion arose from the tenet of the Mormon creed which 
makes the Indian a descendant of the lost tribes of Israel. The 
Mormons made efforts to convert the Indians and believed that 
eventually the Indians would return to their heritage. The people 
of Missouri were very busy at the time driving the Indians from 
their heritage into unsettled land west of the Mississippi, and they 
were finding it difficult enough to do without the irritating and 
counteracting influence of a people who promised that before long 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 101 


the Indians would return. Indian wars were the main excitement 
of the country at the time, and the settlers of Missouri feared the 
Indians more than they admired their ancestry and preferred to 
suppress them rather than to trust them. Any one who regarded 
an Indian as anything but an enemy could never be popular. 

Another reason for the unpopularity of the Mormons was that 
they looked with eagerness to the day when their enemies would 
fall, and they would be triumphant over all other sects and creeds. 
Every earthquake, every great storm, every plague, and every fire 
were recorded with care in the publications of the Church as 
signs of the approaching end of wickedness which was not re- 
pentant. Individual Mormons irritated their neighbors by urgent 
invitations to join the only people who would be saved. 

One of the immediate causes of mob action against the Mor- 
mons in Missouri was a speech delivered by Sidney Rigdon 
on the Fourth of July, 1838, at Far West. This vehement ora- 
tion was known thereafter as the “Salt Sermon,” because Sidney 
Rigdon took for his text the verses in the fifth chapter of Mat- 
thew: “If the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be 
salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, 
and to be trodden under foot of men.”’ Rigdon applied this text 
somewhat freely to the enemies of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-day Saints, and expressed it as his firm opinion that such 
persons would eventually be trodden under foot until their bowels 
gushed out. Rigdon pointed out the warning that ‘the apostles 
threw Judas Iscariot down and trampled out his bowels, and that 
Peter stabbed Ananias and Sapphira.”” Then he issued this ulti- 
matum: 


“We have proved the world with kindness ; we have suffered their 
abuse, without cause, with patience, and have endured without 
resentment, until this day, and still their persecution and violence 
does not cease. But from this day and this hour, we will suffer 
it no more. 

“We take God and all the holy angels to witness this day, that 
we warn all men, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no 
more for ever, for, from this hour, we will bear it no more. Our 
rights shall no more be trampled on with impunity. The man, or 
set of men, who attempt it, does it at the expense of their lives. 
And that mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between 
us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them till 
the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to 


102 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


exterminate us; for we will carry the seat of war to their own 
houses, and their own families, and one part or the other shall be 
utterly destroyed. Remember it then, all men. ... We this day 
then proclaim ourselves free, with a purpose and a determination 
that never can be broken, no never, no never, NO NEVER.” 


This was a dare which it was hard for their rough, pioneer neigh- 
bors to resist. At the election one month later, it was decided to 
prevent the Mormons from voting. A fight was the result, and 
men were killed on both sides. Mobs began to collect rapidly for 
the avowed purpose of driving the Mormons from Missouri and 
killing as many as possible in the process. | 

From that time on all was confusion and violence. Mormons 
were tarred and feathered in the effort to make them deny their | 
faith in the Book of Mormon. Their farms were burned and | 
their houses destroyed. They also claim that their women were 
“raped and their old men mercilessly murdered. Some of the Mor- 
mons took shelter in the woods and others in Haun’s Mill. Par- 
ties of the mob surrounded this mill and murdered eighteen men, 
women, and children. When the mill was finally emptied of 
Mormons by their slaughter or by their escape, the Missourians 
are said to have found one small boy. One of them urged his 
companion not to shoot, but the reported reply was: “Nits will 
make lice; it is best to save them when we can.” 

The Mormons did not yield without resisting. At this time 
the notorious Danites were organized by the Mormons. This was 
a secret order, the existence of which has frequently been denied 
by the Mormons, but it is established by the testimony of too 
many men that there was such an organization. It was estab- 
lished in 1837 or 1838 under David W. Patten, a leader of the 
Church, who was known as Captain Fearnot, because of his re- 
puted courage. The order was first called the Daughters of . 
Gideon, but it soon occurred to some one that it was ridiculous 
for bearded and violent men to operate under a feminine name, 
and the name was changed to Destroying Angels. This, too, did 
not seem exactly appropriate, and finally the name, Sons of Dan,’ 
or Danites, was adopted, from the passage in Genesis which 
reads: ‘Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, 
that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.” 
There were secret oaths and alleged awful penalties, but exactly 
what these were it is impossible to discover. In the course of a 
battle with the Missouri mobs Captain Fearnot, David W. Patten, 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 103 


was killed, but the Danites are said to have continued in Mormon 
history until long after the migration to Utah. 

By the treachery of a Colonel Hinkle, whom Joseph Smith 
thought to be working for his interests, Smith, Rigdon, Parley 
Pratt, and several other leaders, except Brigham Young, were 
surrendered to the Missouri militia, who had been called out for 
the purpose of aiding the Missouri mobs rather than subduing 
them. General Lucas, commanding the militia, issued the fol- 
lowing curt order: 


“BRIGADIER-GENERAL DoNIPHAN:? 

“Sir:—You will take Joseph Smith and the other prisoners into 
the public square of Far West, and shoot them at 9 o’clock to- 
morrow morning. 

“SAMUEL D. Lucas, Major-General Commanding.” 


But fortunately for the Prophet he had some weeks before re- 
tained General Doniphan as his lawyer, and Doniphan had been 
teaching Smith and Rigdon law. The General, according to 
Joseph Smith, thought them good students, and that they could be 
admitted to the bar within twelve months, General Doniphan, 
who later became famous in the war between the United States 
and Mexico, sent the following reply to his commanding officer: 


“Tt is cold-blooded murder. I will not obey your order. My 
brigade shall march for Liberty to-morrow morning at 8 o’clock; 
and if you execute these men, I will hold you responsible before 
an earthly tribunal, so help me God. 

“A. W. DoniIpHAN, Brigadier-General.” 


General Lucas decided not to shoot his prisoners, and they were 
marched into Liberty, Clay County, for trial, and confined mean- 
while in the Liberty jail. Eliza Snow, the Mormon poetess, cele- 
brated this arrest of the Prophet in these lines: 


“What means your savage conduct? 
Have you a lawful Writ? 
To any LEGAL process 
I cheerfully submit.’ 


‘Here,’ said these lawless ruffians, 
‘Is our authority’ ; 
And drew their pistols nearer, 
With rude ferocity.” 


104 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


During the Mormon persecutions Joseph Smith rode along the 
lines of his followers and said: ‘‘God and liberty is the watchword. 
Fear them not, for their hearts are cold as cucumbers.’ The 
Prophet had frequently said that a Gentile could not kill a Mor- 
mon, but after it had happened many times, he was compelled 
to explain why God allowed the outrage. He did so by ask- 
ing why God had not helped the Saviour down from the cross, 
and why Paul had not been saved by a miracle from stones and 
whipping. This did not answer the question, except by asking 
it again, but it was sufficient answer for Smith’s followers, who 
always believed that there were more things in heaven and earth 
than they could possibly dream of in their philosophy. The 
Prophet once said concerning prayers for the destruction of his 
enemies: “The Lord once told me that what I asked for I should 
have. I have been afraid to ask God to kill my enemies, lest some 
of them should, peradventure, repent.””’ However, he did not hesi- 
tate to wish for their destruction in a more eccentric manner. 
Once when he was asked for a toast, he raised his glass and said: 
“Here is wishing that all the mobocrats of the nineteenth century 
were in the middle of the sea, in a stone canoe, with an iron 
paddle; that a shark might swallow the canoe, and the shark be 
thrust into the nethermost part of hell, and the door locked, the 
key lost, and a blind man hunting for it.” 

Brigham Young was the only important leader of the Church 
to escape arrest. He seemed all his life to have a canny ability 
to avoid capture. During the persecutions in Missouri he had 
attained a position of prominence. When the council of the 
Twelve Apostles was organized at Kirtland, he had been appointed 
the third apostle, and the succession to the presidency of that body 
was in numerical rotation. The two men ahead of him were 
. David W. Patten, who had been killed during the battles, and_ 

~ Thomas B. Marsh, who was President of the Twelve Apostles 
and leader of the Saints in Missouri. Marsh’s wife had a quar- 
rel over a pint of milk with another sister. Marsh defended 
his wife, and when the Church councils decided against her at 
the numerous trials which followed, Marsh declared “that he 
would sustain the character of his wife, even if he had to go to 
hell for it.” He apostatized and testified against his former 
brethren. Many years later, broken in health and finances, Marsh 
rejoined the Church in Utah. 

Brigham Young automatically stepped into the important posi- 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 105 


tion left vacant by Marsh’s apostasy. Smith and the other lead- 
ers were in jail, so it was Brigham Young’s job to superintend 
the removal of the Saints from the State of Missouri. The Gov- 
ernor of Missouri, Lillburn W. Boggs, decided that the Mormons 
must leave Missouri in a body or be exterminated, unless they 
were willing to renounce their religion and live as other Mis- 
sourians. ‘The Mormons, who had been beaten into submission 
by the combination of mob and militia, were lined up, and the 
Governor’s order was read to them: Brigham Young was present 
at this ceremony, and he told his congregation many years later 
in a sermon what his thoughts were at the time: 


“Do you want I should tell you what I thought? I do not think 
I will. I thought a kind of a bad thought, that is, it would be con- 
sidered so by a very religious person, and especially if he was well 
stocked with ‘self-righteousness; but I would as soon as not tell 
what I thought to those who have not much of this and are not 
very pious, and it was, ‘I will see you in hell first.’ Renounce my re- 
ligion? ‘No, sir,’ said I, ‘it is my all, all I have on this earth... .’” 


The Mormons chose to leave Missouri, and Brigham Young 
led his people out of the house of bondage into what he could not 
tell at the time would prove to be the land of Egypt. The exodus 
was attended with much misery. Valuable farms were traded 
for old waggons, horses, or yokes of oxen, and it is said that 
many Mormons were compelled to convey their land at the point 
of arifle muzzle. About three thousand of them under the leader- 
ship of Brigham Young made their way to Illinois, where there 
was a small settlement of the Saints. The people of Quincy, 
Illinois, moved by the stories of their persecutions in Missouri, 
offered the Mormons sympathy and aid. | 

The persecutions of the Mormons in Missouri were summed 
up by Parley P. Pratt in a hymn which has always been popular 
among the Saints: 


“Missouri, 
Like a whirlwind in its fury, 
And without a judge or jury, 
Drove the saints and spilled their blood.” 


From his cell in Liberty jail the Prophet wrote epistles to his 
people, in which he said that their misfortunes and his were but 
signs of the times, and proof positive that the fulfilment of the 


106 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


revelations and predictions concerning the destruction of the 
wicked would be carried out presently. The prisoners were tried 
on a composite charge of murder, theft, treason, arson, and 
several minor crimes. The scene in the court room was one of 
confusion and interruption. Peter H. Burnett, who, with Gen- 
eral Doniphan, defended Smith and his associates, gave this 
description of the trial in his book, Recollections and Opinions of 
an Old Pioneer: 


“T made the opening speech, and was replied to by the District 
Attorney; and Doniphan made the closing argument. Before he 
rose to speak, or just as he rose, I whispered to him: ‘Doniphan! 
let yourself out, my good fellow; and I will kill the first man that 
attacks you.’ And he did let himself out, in one of the most elo- 
quent and withering speeches I ever heard. The maddened crowd 
foamed and gnashed their teeth, but only to make him more and 
more intrepid. He faced the terrible storm with the most noble 
courage. All the time I sat within six feet of him, with my hand 
upon my pistol, calmly determined to do as I had promised him.” 


Unfortunately, there is no account of what General Doniphan 
said. Joseph Smith’s mother gave a less pleasant, but just as in- 
teresting, incident of the trial: 


“The opposing attorney tried his utmost to convict Joseph of the 
crimes mentioned in the writ, but before he had spoken many 
minutes, he turned sick, and vomited at the feet of the Judge; which, 
joined to the circumstance of his advocating the case of the Mis- 
sourians, who are called pukes by their countrymen, obtained for 
him the same appelation, and was a source of much amusement to 
the court.” 


The prisoners were granted a change of venue on April 15, 
1839, and they were taken under guard to Boone County. Smith 
bought whiskey and honey for the guards and succeeded in getting 
them helplessly drunk. The prisoners escaped on horses, making 
their way to Illinois and their followers. The Prophet had been 
in jail for six months. 

It was estimated that it had cost the State of Missouri $150,000 
to wage war against the Mormons, and Joseph Smith soon after 
he was settled in Illinois drew up claims for $1,381,044.55%, 
which he presented to Congress. He made a special trip to Wash- 
ington in 1839 in the interests of this claim and to seek restitu- 


THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 107 


tion of the rights of his people to their Missouri property. He 
called on President Martin Van Buren, who listened with impa- 
tience to the long recital of the Mormon complaints. When 
Joseph Smith and his associates had finished, Van Buren said: 
“Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you. 
Were I to take your part, I should lose the support of Missouri.” 
This was frank, but it filled Joseph Smith with a rage against 
Martin Van Buren that manifested itself whenever the occasion 
arose during the next few years. The claim for damages was 
presented to the Senate, where it was attacked with vehemence by 
the senators from Missouri, Benton and Lynn, and buried without 
action. 

The Missouri persecutions, though they were productive of 
much suffering and hardship, gained the Mormons considerable 
sympathy in other parts of the country. Mass meetings were 
held in large cities in the East, expressing sympathy for them, 
and money was raised for their relief. Newspapers in many parts 
of the country blamed Missouri and defended the Mormons. 

If we can believe Parley Pratt, terrible things happened eventu- 
ally to those Missourians who had been most active in persecuting 
the Saints. Pratt wrote in his autobiography: 


“A colonel of the Missouri mob, who helped to drive, plunder 
and murder the Mormons, died in the hospital at Sacramento, 1849. 
Beckwith had the care of him; he was eaten with worms—a large 
black headed kind of maggot—which passed through him by 
myriads, seemingly a half pint at a time! Before he died these 
maggots were crawling out of his mouth and nose! He literally 
rotted alive! FEven the flesh on his legs burst open and fell from 
the bones! They gathered up the rotten mass in a blanket and 
buried him, without awaiting a coffin! 

“A. Mr. , one of the Missouri mob, died in the same hospital 
about the same time, and under the care of Mr. Beckwith. His face 
and jaw on one side literally rotted, and half of his face actually 
fell off! One eye rotted out, and half of his nose, mouth and jaw 
fell from the bones! The doctor scraped the bones, and unlocked 
and took out his jaw from the joint round to the center of the chin. 
The rot and maggots continued to eat till they ate through the 
large or jugular vein of his neck, and he bled to death! He, as well 
as Townsend, stank so previous to their death that they had to be 
placed in rooms by themselves, and it was almost impossible to 
endure their presence, and the flies could not be kept from blowing 
them while alive! ... 





108 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“These particulars, and many others, were related to me by 
brother Beckwith previous to his death, and afterwards by his widow 
and father-in-law, and others who were conversant with them, and 
are believed to be correct.” ?? 


There was one important matter to attend to before the Mor- 
mons abandoned Missouri to the buffetings of Satan for eternity. 
God had instructed Joseph Smith to build a Temple there, and He 
had declared that Jackson County was Zion. The Mormons 
firmly believed that God always meant what He said. Therefore, 
Brigham Young and the other eleven Apostles made a secret trip 
to Missouri, arriving there at midnight on April 26, 1839. The 
revelation concerning the Temple had said that one year from 
the date of its issue, April 8, 1838, the Saints must commence to 
lay the foundation. Young and his associates went at midnight 
to the chosen site of the Temple, sang a hymn softly, rolled one 
large stone upon another, and Joseph Smith’s prophetic power 
was vindicated and his pact with God fulfilled. 


12 The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, pp. 476-477. 


Chapter IV 


; THE LAND OF EGYPT 


I 


THE Mormons were received in Illinois with that pity and sym- 
pathy accorded to all suffering peoples on their arrival in a 
country which has heard many sorrowful tales of their hardships. 
The people of Quincy, through a special committee, recommended 
that the pitiful strangers be treated with “a becoming decorum 
and delicacy,” and that the regular inhabitants of Quincy should 
“be particularly careful not to indulge in any conversation or 
expressions calculated to wound their feelings, or in any way 
to reflect upon those who, by every law of humanity, are entitled 
to our sympathy and commiseration.”’ Meanwhile, Brigham 
Young and the other leaders of the Saints were busy arranging 
for the people to help themselves. The refugees were not rich in 
possessions, but their reputation for thrift was productive of 
credit, and land was sold to them in Iowa and Illinois, on both 
banks of the Mississippi. 

On the east bank of the Mississippi was a town called Com- 
merce. It consisted of five huts, a storehouse, two frame houses, 
and two blockhouses, with plenty of surrounding farming land 
and a beautiful outlook over the River. In spite of its rich land 
and lovely view the place was considered unhealthy, and the 
Mormons were able to purchase the whole town and its adjoining 
land for little money. As soon as they took possession the name 
of the town was changed from the prosaic Commerce, which had 
been given it by a New York land company, to Nauvoo, which, 
according to Joseph Smith, meant beautiful. “The name of our 
city,” he said, “is of Hebrew origin, and signifies a beautiful site, 
conveying besides an idea of repose.” Other Hebrew scholars 
were never able to identify the word, and, as we shall see, the 
Mormons did not enjoy repose there for very long. One Hebrew 
scholar remarked concerning Smith’s attempt at erudition that 
it was similar to that of the theological students of Middletown, 

109 


110 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Connecticut, who used to say that the name of their town was 
derived from Moses by dropping “iddletown,” and adding “oses.”’ 

During the strenuous efforts necessary to turn an undeveloped, 
swampy territory into a neat city, many of the Mormons suffered 
from malaria contracted while breaking up the new land. Even 
the Prophet and Brigham Young caught the disease. But Joseph 
Smith went about healing his people, and it was to his power as a 
spiritual physician that many of them claimed to owe their sal- 
vation. This healing kept him very busy, for one of the early 
journals records that he was once sent for to heal a pair of twins 
and could not go himself because of previous appointments. But 
he sent his red silk handkerchief, and this, we are told, was just 
as effective. Wilford Woodruff, who was the bearer of the 
handkerchief, recorded the incident in his journal: “He took a 
red silk handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to me, and 
told me to wipe their faces with the handkerchief when I admin- 
istered to them, and they should be healed. He also said unto 
me: ‘As long as you will keep that handkerchief, it shall remain 
a league between you and me.’ I went with the man, and did 
as the Prophet commanded me, and the children were healed. I 
have possession of the handkerchief unto this day.” 

The new city began to prosper rapidly, and in what seemed a 
miraculously short time the new farms were producing crops 
and the new city had buildings. The neighbors were amazed at 
the display of energy, but the Mormons attributed everything to 
the inspiration of God. 

Under the leadership of Brigham Young and the Twelve 
Apostles missionaries went throughout this country and England 
to preach the glory of God and the beauty of Nauvoo. It is a 
mystery how these men lived en route, for they themselves have 
been content to record that God supported them. Brigham Young 
insisted in later years that when he was traveling in the interests 
of Mormonism he would put his hand in his pocket or in his 
trunk and find money which had not been there before, and which 
he could only account for as a gift from God. George D. Pren- 
tice, a humorist of the day, suggested sacrilegiously that perhaps 
Brigham Young had not always put his hand into his own pocket. 

| Soon after his family was settled in the new city Brigham 
: Young, accompanied by Heber Kimball, left for a missionary trip 
to England. Joseph Smith had received a revelation from God 
that it was the duty of the Church to preach the Gospel in Eng- 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 11] 


land. Brigham Young was very ill at the time, for the Prophet’s 
healing powers had not been entirely successful in his case; he 
had to be helped to the ferry from his home, and as the waggon 
carried him and Heber Kimball out of sight of their weeping 
families, Kimball suggested that they should give a cheer. Prop- 
ping himself up, Brigham Young shouted, “Hurrah, hurrah, 
hurrah for Israel!” 

On March 7, 1840, Brigham Young and several of the Apostles 
sailed as steerage passengers in the Patrick Henry, paying 
eighteen dollars each for their fare. In addition to this they sup- 
plied their own food, but Brigham Young did not spend much 
money on food, for it is recorded that he was seasick practically 
every day of the twenty-seven-day trip from New York to 
Liverpool. 

A faithful English convert gave Brigham Young 350 pounds, 
with which he secured the English copyright of the Book of 
Mormon and printed several thousand copies of it. The Mullen- 
nial Star was started under the editorship of Parley P. Pratt so 
that the English Saints might know the news of their American 
brethren. Meetings were held daily in various parts of England. 
During the year which they spent there Brigham Young and his 
associates established branches of Mormonism in most of the 
large towns and cities, converted 8,000 people, sending 1,000 of 
them to Nauvoo, and published 5,000 copies of the Book of Mor- 
mon, 3,000 hymn books and 50,000 tracts. They also established 
a shipping agency for the convenience of converts who wished to 
emigrate to the new Zion. While carrying on all this work for 
the cause, they also managed somehow to get food and lodging 
for themselves. In a letter to Joseph Smith Brigham Young 
explained their success: 


“The people are very different in this country to what the Ameri- 
cans are. They say it cannot be possible that men should leave 
their homes and come so far, unless they were truly the servants of 
the Lord; they do not seem to understand argument; simple testi- 
mony is enough for them; they beg and plead for the Book of 
Mormon, and were it not for the priests, the people would follow 
dope 4 servants of the Lord and inquire what they should do to 

saved.” 


The Mormon missionaries were particularly successful among the 
poverty-stricken manufacturing population of English cities, 


112 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


where their offer of a real promised land, with farming possi- 
bilities, proved irresistibly attractive. In an Epistle to the Saints 
in Great Britain Brigham Young urged emigration, giving Bib- 
lical precedents for it: 


“The spirit of emigration has actuated the children of men, from 
the time our first parents were expelled from the garden until now. 
It was this spirit that first peopled the plains of Shinar, and all 
other places; yes, it was emigration that first broke upon the death- 
like silence and loneliness of an empty earth, and caused the deso- 
late land to teem with life, and the desert to smile with joy.” 


But, he hastened to add, it was necessary that men with capital 
should emigrate first, so that they might establish factories and 
mills to be worked by their less fortunate brethren. 

Mormon missionaries had preceded Brigham Young and his 
party to England, but they did not possess the energy or tempera- 
ment necessary to widespread success. In a sermon Brigham 
Young once told the improper and the proper way to make con- 
verts, as illustrated by the temperaments of Brother Wilford 
Woodruff and Brother Heber C. Kimball: 


“When we found them in London, Brother Woodruff was busily 
engaged in writing his history from morning until evening; and if a 
sister called on him, he would say, ‘How do you do? take a chair,’ 
and keep on writing and laboring to bring up the history of the 
Church and his own. 

“That was all right and well, in its place; but, if a sister asked a 
question, the answer would be, ‘Yes’; and if she asked another, 
‘No’; and that was the sum of the conversation. If a brother came 
in, it would be the same. But Brother Kimball would say, ‘Come, 
my friend, sit down; do not be in a hurry’; and he would begin 
and preach the Gospel in a plain, familiar manner, and make his 
hearers believe everything he said, and make them testify to its 
truth, whether they believed or not, asking them, ‘Now, ain’t that 
so?’ and they would say, ‘Yes.’ And he would make Scripture as 
he needed it, out of his own bible, and ask, ‘Now, ain’t that so?’ 
and the reply would be ‘Yes.’ He would say, ‘Now, you believe 
this? You see how plain the Gospel is? Come along now’; and 
he would lead them into the waters of baptism. The people would 
want to come to see him early in the morning, and stay with him 
until noon, and from that until night; and he would put his arm 
around their necks, and say, ‘Come, let us go down to the water.’ ” # 


1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 305. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 113 


’ Brigham Young had great influence in persuading converts 
not only to devote themselves, but also to devote their money to 
the new cause, for all the operations of his successful missionary 
trips were financed by the converts he made in the course of them. 
_ He accomplished this, not by asking them for their money, but 
_ by bringing them to the point of realization that it was their duty | 
_ to give it to him. The missionary foundation which was laid” 
in England by Brigham Young has always been the most exten- 
sive source of converts to Mormonism. Such was the magnitude 
of the early success in that country that a few years later Joseph 
Smith had hopes of converting Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. 
He ordered Elder Lorenzo Snow to send copies of the Book of 
Mormon to both of them, and the Mormons seemed to. enter- 
tain hopes that their majesties would eventually see the light, 
join the only true church, lend their great influence to the cause, 
and finally make a pilgrimage to Nauvoo, Illinois. Eliza Snow, 
the Mormon poetess, celebrated the thought in these lines: 


“Oh! would she now her influence lend— 
The influence of royalty— 
Messiah’s kingdom to extend, 
And Zion’s nursing mother be, 
Then with the glory of her name 
Inscribed on Zion’s lofty spire, 
She’d win a wreath of endless fame, 
To last when other wreaths expire.” 


But Queen Victoria did not grasp the opportunity, for the 
Mormons never heard from her concerning their bible. 


II 


By the time Brigham Young had returned to Nauvoo from 
his successful missionary trip, Joseph Smith had started several 
projects of great importance to the community and to the Church. 
On the 19th of January, 1841, Joseph Smith received a long 
revelation from God, in which his people were commanded to 
begin work on two imposing structures, one a Temple for the 
habitation of the Lord for eternity, and the other a boarding 
house for the lodging of Joseph Smith and his descendants from 
generation to generation. The Lord pointed out that He had 
much to reveal of great importance, but that He could not do so 


114 | BRIGHAM YOUNG 


with freedom until the people had a house of worship in which 
to receive such glorious revelations, where they could carry out 
appropriately the rites attendant upon their execution. He recom- 
mended that the brethren come from afar and bring with them 
their gold and their silver and their precious stones, and that they 
gather woods of many varieties for the House of the Lord. 

As soon as He had finished speaking of His Temple, the Lord 
took up the matter of Joseph Smith’s boarding house and went 
into the following details: 


“And now I say unto you, as pertaining to my boarding house 
which I have commanded you to build for the boarding of strangers, 
let it be built unto my name, and let my name be named upon it, and 
let my servant Joseph, and his house have place therein, from 
generation to generation: 

“For this anointing have I put upon his head, that his blessing 
shall also be put upon the head of his posterity after him; ‘ 

“Therefore, let my servant Joseph and his seed after him have 
place in that house, from generation to generation, for ever and 
ever, saith the Lord, 

“And let the name of that house be called Nauvoo house, and 
let it be a delightful habitation for man, and a resting place for the 
weary traveler, that he may contemplate the glory of Zion, and the 
glory of this the corner-stone thereof; 

“Behold, verily I say unto you, let my servant George Miller, and 
my servant Lyman Wight, and my servant John Snider, and my 
servant Peter Haws, organize themselves, and appoint one of them 
to be a president over their quorum for the PURDOSS of building 
that house. 

“And they shall form a constitution ere they may receive 
stock for the building of that house. 

“And they shall not receive less than fifty dollars for a share of 
stock in that house, and they shall be permitted to receive fifteen 
thousand dollars from any one man for stock in that house; 

“But they shall not be permitted to receive over fifteen thousand 
dollars stock from any one man; 

“And they shall not be permitted to receive under fifty dollars 
for a share of stock from any one man in that house; 

“And they shall not be permitted to receive any man as a stock- 
holder in this house, except the same shall pay his stock into their 
hands at the time he receives stock; 

“And in proportion to the amount of stock he pays into their 
hands, he shall receive stock in that house; but if he pays nothing 
into their hands, he shall not receive any stock in that house. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 115 


“And if any pay stock in to their hands, it shall be for stock 
in that house, for himself and for his generation after him, from 
generation to ‘generation, so long as he and his heirs shall hold that 
stock, and do not sell or convey the stock away out of their hands 
by their own free will and act, if you will do my will, saith the 
Lord your God. 

“And again, verily I say unto you, if my servant George Miller, 
and my servant Lyman Wight, and my servant Peter Haws, receive 
any stock into their hands, in moneys or in properties wherein they 
receive the real value of moneys, they shall not appropriate any 
portion of that stock to any other purpose, only in that house; 

“And if they do appropriate any portion of that stock any where 
else, only in that house, without the consent of the stockholder, and 
do not repay fourfold for the stock which they appropriate any 
where else, only in that house, they shall be accursed, and shall 
be moved out of their place, saith the Lord God, for I, the Lord, 
am God and cannot be mocked in any of these things.” 


Then the Lord proceeded to give several specific commands con- 
cerning the Nauvoo House. He ordered Vinson Knight, Hyrum 
Smith, whom He called familiarly by his first name, Isaac Gal- 
land, William Marks, Henry G. Sherwood, William Law, Almon 
Babbitt, and Amos Davies to take stock in the Nauvoo House. 
“And again,’ God continued, “verily I say unto you, Let no man 
pay stock to the quorum of the Nauvoo House unless he shall 
be a believer in the Book of Mormon, and the revelations I have 
given unto you, saith the Lord your God.’ There was no pros- 
pect that anybody else would pay stock into the hands of the 
quorum, but God seemed anxious that the control should remain 
within the Church. In its combination of the language of the 
Bible and the expressions used in the prospectus of a speculative 
corporation, this revelation is unsurpassed by any of the Prophet 
Joseph Smith’s other attempts at inspired enterprise. This reve- 
lation would lead us to believe that God was not only an inspira- 
tion but also a capable corporation promoter. He carefully 
‘selected even the name for His boarding house, and in calling it 
The Nauvoo House, He hit upon the name which every Main 
Street would recognize at once as most appropriate.” 

Work progressed slowly on the Temple, apparently because the 
Lord had not formulated a stock-selling plan for it, but the 
Nauvoo House was built in a comparatively short time after it 


2 This revelation is printed in full in Section 124 of the Book of Doctrine 
and Covenants. 


116 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


was commanded. The Prophet made speeches to his people urg- 
ing them to contribute their money to the fund for building both 
the Temple and the Nauvoo House. He was getting tired of 
receiving old clothes and trinkets, and one day on the streets of 
Nauvoo he made this appeal for cash: 


“We want gold and silver to build the Temple and Nauvoo House: 
we want your old nose-rings, and finger rings, and brass kettles no 
longer. If you have old rags, watches, guns, &c., go and peddle 
them off, and bring the hard metal; and if we will do this by 
popular opinion, we shall have a sound currency. Send home all 
banknotes, and take no more paper money. Let every man write 
back to his neighbors before he starts for home to exchange his 
property for gold and silver, that he may fulfil the scripture, and 
come up to Zion, bringing his gold and silver with him... . If any 
are hungry or naked, don’t take away the brick, timber and ma- 
terials, that belong to that house [the Temple], but come and tell 
me, and I will divide with them to the last morsel; and then if the 
man is not satisfied, I will kick his backside.” 3 


Joseph Smith was about six feet two in height, weighed 212 
pounds and was always proud of his physical strength; he ex- 
hibited it frequently by wrestling with his brethren and his 
enemies. 

In August, 1843, the Prophet moved into the Lord’s boarding 
house, and on October 3 of that year it was formally opened 
with appropriate resolutions proclaiming the virtues of Joseph 
Smith and the beauties of Nauvoo. At first the Prophet man- 
aged the boarding house himself, but either he found the stress 
of practical management too great, or he was not successful as a 
hotel manager, for it was soon leased to Ebenezer Robinson, and 
Joseph Smith retained a few rooms for himself and his family. 
In an interview published in the Universalist Union for May 4, 
1844, the Prophet gave his reason for establishing a boarding 
house, besides the command of God to do so: “ ‘I can’t stand it 
to entertain all who come to see me—I wish I could—but I am 
not able, and so to get clear of it, I am going to keep tavern; 
then they can come and see me and stay as long as they choose, 
and when they are satisfied, they can pay me and go away. Isn’t 
that right?’ said he exultingly.” Nauvoo was becoming one of 
the curiosities of America, and visitors came there every week 


8 History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 286. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 117 


from the eastern states and from England to examine the latter- 
day Prophet and to investigate the principles of his new religion. 

While his hotel was in the course of construction, the Prophet 
started a grocery store, with a private office adjoining, ‘“where,”’ 
he wrote, “I keep my sacred writings.” He was quite willing to 
interrupt his translations to sell some canned goods, and his fol- 
lowers, who had practical Yankee training, did not admire their 
Prophet less because he was sometimes a salesman. But Joseph 
Smith was no more successful as a storekeeper at Nauvoo than 
he had been at Kirtland, and a few months after the opening of 
his store, he took advantage of the bankruptcy law to clear him- 
self of his debts. Huis brother Hyrum also. went into bankruptcy. 
This action helped to damage the reputation of the Mormons 
among their non-Mormon neighbors in Illinois. 

In spite of all his enterprises Joseph Smith was not personally 
wealthy. There is other evidence of this besides the unique ac- 
count of his possessions which he rendered the trustee of church 
property: “Old Charley, a horse given to him several years be- 
fore in Kirtland; two pet deer, two old turkeys and four young 
ones, an old cow given to him by a brother in Missouri, old 
Major, a dog; his wife, children, and a little household furniture.”’ 
Brigham Young managed to support a family of eight children in 
Nauvoo, but all he ever said of the origin of his income was that 
the Lord gave it to him. But the source of the Prophet’s sup- 
port is suggested by an appeal Brigham Young issued in an epistle 
to the Saints: 


“His family [Joseph Smith’s] is large and his company great, 
and it requires much to furnish his table. And now, brethren, we 
call on you for immediate relief in this matter; and we invite you 
to bring our President as many loads of wheat, corn, beef, pork, 
lard, tallow, eggs, poultry, venison and everything eatable at your 
command (not excepting unfrozen potatoes and vegetables, as soon 
as the weather will admit,) flour, etc., and thus give him the privi- 
lege of attending your spiritual interest. 

“The measure you mete shall be measured to you again. If you 
give liberally to your President in temporal things, God will return 
to you liberally in spiritual and temporal things too. One or two 
good new milch cows are much needed also. 

“Brethren, will you do your work, and let the President do his 
for you before God? We wish an immediate answer by loaded 
teams or letter. Your brethren in Christ, in behalf of the quorum, 

“BRIGHAM YOUNG. 


118 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“PS. Brethren, we are not unmindful of the favors our Presi- 
dent has received from you in former days. But a man will not 
cease to be hungry this ear because he ate last year. 

eR: vor 4 


That this epistle to the Saints living at Ramus, Illinois, was suc- 
cessful, can be gathered from two entries in the Prophet’s diary 
a few days later: “Bishop Newel K. Whitney returned from 
Ramus this evening, with five teams loaded with provisions and 
grain, as a present to me, which afforded me very seasonable re- 
lief. I pray the Lord to bless those who gave it abundantly ; 
and may it be returned upon their heads an hundred fold!” And, 
a few days later: ‘Brother David Manhard, of Lee County, 
Iowa, brought me two loads of corn and one hog; for which 
may the Lord bless him!” The exclamation marks are Joseph 
Smith’s. 

The system of tithing for the support of the Church and its 
leaders was not so successful under Joseph Smith as it proved 
later under the superior administrative guidance of Brigham 
Young. In a sermon many years later Brigham Young de- 
scribed the kind of offerings made by the Saints in Illinois to 
satisfy their tithing debts: 


“Tn the days of Joseph, when a horse was brought in for tithing, 
he was pretty sure to be hipped, or ringboned, or have the pole-evil, 
or perhaps had passed the routine of horse-disease until he had 
become used up. The question would be, ‘What do you want for 
him?’ ‘Thirty dollars in tithing and thirty in cash.’ What was 
he really worth? Five dollars, perhaps. They would perhaps bring 
in a cow after the wolves had eaten off three of her teats, and she 
had not had a calf for six years past; and if she had a calf, and 
you ventured to milk her, she would kick a quid of tobacco out of 
your mouth. These are specimens of the kind of tithing we used 
to get.” ® 


The Prophet’s followers had become as dependent upon him as 
he was upon them, and they seldom concluded any transaction 
until he had clothed it with sanctity. The negotiations for sev- 
eral farms in Nauvoo for church sites were only begun after fast- 
ing and prayer, and when the specific sites had been decided upon, 


4 History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 249. 
5 Journal of Discourses, vol. 8, p. 346. 


THE’ LAND; OF  EGYFT 119 


the men chosen to complete the purchase were ordained by God 
through Sidney Rigdon for that special purpose. The direct in- 
fluence of Joseph Smith’s revelations on some of his followers is 
admirably illustrated by a passage in Josiah Quincy’s book: 


“Near the entrance to the Temple we passed a workman who was 
laboring under a huge sun, which he had chiselled from the solid 
rock. The countenance was of the negro type, and it was sur- 
rounded by the conventional rays. 

“General Smith,’ said the man, looking up from his task, ‘is 
this like the face you saw in vision?’ 

““Very near it,’ answered the prophet, ‘except’ (this was added 
with an air of careful connoisseurship that was quite overpower- 
ing )—‘except that the nose is just a thought too broad.’ ”’ ® 


III 


When the Mormons arrived in Illinois, the two political parties, 
the Whigs and the Democrats, were fighting a close contest for 
control of the State, and it was a distinct advantage for either 
party to capture the entire vote of the Mormons. Every effort 
was therefore made by politicians to conciliate the people and 
their leaders. As the election of 1840 drew near politicians 
crowded about Joseph Smith, offering him promises, if he would 
deliver the Mormon vote to their parties. The Prophet proved 
himself a shrewd politician, for he promised nothing definitely 
until he was offered definite privileges. What Smith demanded 
for the Mormon vote, which his influence enabled him to deliver 
in a body, was a charter for the city of Nauvoo, a charter for the 
Nauvoo Legion, his militia organization, and a charter for a uni- 
versity to be established at Nauvoo. The Whig Party promised 
these concessions, and the Mormons all voted for the Whig 
candidates, cutting the Democratic majority in the State down to 
the lowest it had ever reached, At the next meeting of the State 
legislature the charters were promptly granted.’ 

The city charter of Nauvoo gave unlimited powers to Joseph 
Smith and his associates. The charter provided that the mayor 
and aldermen of Nauvoo could pass any laws not directly conflict- 
ing with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States 
and the Constitution of Illinois. The charter also granted the 
mayor and his aldermen power to act as a municipal court. In 


6 Figures of the Past, by Josiah Quincy, p. 380. 


120 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


return for these unlimited privileges Joseph Smith gave only a 
limited expression of gratitude. He had promised to vote for the 
Whigs once, but he had not promised to vote for the Whigs 
always, and it was therefore necessary for the legislators of both 
parties to conciliate the Mormons constantly by granting whatever 
they desired in the hope that the vote would go to the highest 
bidder. Abraham Lincoln, when he was competing for office in 
Illinois in 1840, sent the Mormons campaign literature and wrote 
with satisfaction at the time that Joseph Smith was one of his 
admirers. Lincoln also voted in favor of the Nauvoo charter 
when he was a member of the Illinois legislature. Stephen 
Douglas helped to push the charter through the legislature. 
Joseph Smith’s adviser and aide in his political machinations 
was John C. Bennett. Bennett had been a professor of mid- 
wifery, as he chose to call it, in Willoughby University at Wil- 
loughby, Ohio, and a traveling medical practitioner. Governor 
Ford, of Illinois, characterized him accurately in a few words: 
“This Bennett was probably the greatest scamp in the western 
country. I have made particular enquiries concerning him, and 
have traced him in several places in which he had lived before he 
had joined the Mormons, in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and he 
was everywhere accounted the same debauched, unprincipled, and 
profligate character. He was a man of some little talent, and then 
had the confidence of the Mormons, and particularly that of their 
leaders.”’ Bennett had written the Prophet a letter suggesting 
that he might be useful to him in the business of religion if he 
were to come to [Illinois and join the Mormons. His letter was 
filled with flattery, and Joseph Smith found it interesting. Then, 
with crude but effective advertising tactics, Bennett followed his 
letter with one every day for a week, enclosing testimonials of 
his character and his achievements. All of these letters employed 
the tone of an unduly exuberant and obviously insincere en- 
thusiast, who was more concerned with his ambitions than with ° 
his honesty. But Joseph Smith, who had something of the same 
quality, felt that such a man could be extremely useful to him, 
and as soon as Bennett himself followed his advance letters to 
Nauvoo, he was welcomed and taken into the complete confidence 
of the Mormon leaders. It was he who carried on the negotia- 
tions with politicians, and it was he who talked to legislators in 
the lobby of the Illinois legislature until the Nauvoo charter was 
passed. After the charter was passed, Bennett became Mayor 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 121 


of Nauvoo, Master in Chancery for Hancock County, Illinois, 
Quartermaster-General of the Illinois State Militia, and Major- 
General of the Nauvoo Legion, which was nominally a branch of 
the Illinois militia, but actually an independent military force 
under the absolute control of the Prophet and his associates. 

The Nauvoo Legion soon after the legislature granted the 
charter for its organization consisted of about 5,000 men, and 
all male Mormons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five 
were compelled to join it. Drills were compulsory, and a sliding 
scale of fines was established for those who failed to attend. 
Generals were fined twenty-five dollars; colonels, twenty dollars; 
captains, fifteen dollars; lieutenants, ten dollars; musicians and 
privates, five dollars. The costumes of the Legion were pic- 
turesque rather than uniform, for most of the officers and soldiers 
consulted their individual taste; scarfs, badges, and stripes of 
varied brilliant colors were attached indiscriminately to the uni- 
forms. The Prophet held the position of Lieutenant-General, and 
a Mormon writer boasted that after George Washington he was 
the first man in the United States to_hold that exalted rank; but 
George Washington did not give it to himself. The purpose of 
the Legion was described in verse by the Mormon poetess, Eliza 
Snow : 


“The firm heart of the Sage and the Patriot is warm’d 
By the grand ‘Nauvoo Legion’: The ‘Legion’ is form’d 
To oppose vile oppression, and nobly to stand 
In defence of the honor, and laws of the land. 

Base, illegal proscribers may tremble—’tis right 

That the lawless aggressor should shrink with afright, 

From a band that’s united fell mobbers to chase, 

And protect our lov’d country from utter disgrace. .. .” 
Their neighbors, however, did not regard this formidable military 
force as a source of protection, but ungratefully they began to 
express the opinion and the fear that Joseph Smith was emulating 
the career of Mohammed by attempting to propagate his faith, if 
not by the sword, at least by militia. That Smith would have 
used his army to spread his creed one cannot establish or deny, 
for he never enjoyed that opportunity, but its existence was a 
source of apprehension to the non-Mormon population of Illinois, 
and it is undoubtedly true that Joseph Smith intended the Nauvoo 
Legion more for his personal protection from arrest and perse- 


122 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


cution than for the protection of the inhabitants of Illinois, who 
needed none at the time. 

Whatever his purpose in organizing a private army, Joseph 
Smith cherished the pomp of his military position. He enjoyed 
very much riding up and down the lines of brightly colored uni- 
forms, dressed as he was in tight breeches and a swallow-tail 
coat, ornamented with great areas of gold braid. His large, 
strong body, clothed in its garish uniform, made as great an 
impression on himself as it did on his followers. The high title 
of Lieutenant-General pleased him immensely. Josiah Quincy 
overheard him make rather incongruous use of it in an argument 
with a Methodist minister: “Why I told my congregation the 
other Sunday that they might as well believe Joe Smith as such. 
theology as that,’”’ said the Methodist. ‘Did you say Joe Smith 
in a sermon?” asked the Prophet. “Of course, I did. Why not?” 
Smith replied in a tone of quiet superiority, “Considering only 
the day and the place, it would have been more respectful to have 
said Lieutenant-General Joseph Smith.” 

Before long Joseph Smith succeeded John C. Bennett as Mayor 
of Nauvoo, and in his various positions of Mayor, Lieutenant- 
General, and Prophet of God he combined in himself all the 
powers to which man might aspire. ‘It seems to me, General,” 
Josiah Quincy said to him, “that you have too much power to be 
safely trusted to one man.” “In your hands or that of any other 
person,” Smith answered, “so much power would, no doubt, be 
dangerous. I am the only man in the world whom it would be 
safe to trust with it. Remember, I am a prophet!” “The last 
five words,” wrote Quincy, ‘‘were spoken in a rich, comical aside, 
as if in hearty recognition of the ridiculous sound they might 
have in the ears of a Gentile.” 

It was not long before Joseph Smith began to abuse his vast 
power and to arouse the watchful and jealous animosity of his 
neighbors. The Mormons had increased gradually by foreign 
immigration and domestic proselytizing until they numbered 
-almost 12,000 and formed the largest city in the sparsely settled 
_ State of Illinois. Chicago at the time had a population of about 
4,000. The voting strength of the Mormons was greater than 
the combined voting power of the non-Mormons of Hancock 
County, and the manner in which Joseph Smith used it is illus- 
trated by a letter he published in the Times and Seasons, the 
- weekly Mormon periodical published at Nauvoo: 


THE: LAND ‘OF EGYPT 123 


“To my friends in Illinois—The Gubernatorial Convention of the 
State of Illinois have nominated Colonel Adam W. Snyder for Gov- 
ernor, and Colonel John Moore for Lieutenant-Governor of the 
State of Illinois, election to take place in August next. . . . General 
Bennett informs us that no men were more efficient in assisting 
him to procure our great chartered privileges, than were Colonel 
Snyder, and Colonel Moore. They are sterling men, and friends 
of equal rights, opposed to the oppressor’s grasp, and the tyrant’s 
rod. With such men at the head of our State, Government will 
have nothing to fear. | 

“In the next canvass, we shall be influenced by no party consid- 
eration... we care not a FIG for WHIG or DEMOCRAT;; they 
are both alike to us, but we shall go for our friends, our tried 
friends, and the cause of human liberty, which is the cause of 
Goa. 

“Douglass (Stephen A. Douglas) ts a master spirit, and his friends 
are our friends. ..°. Snyder and Moore are his friends—they are 
ours. ... We will never be justly charged with THE SIN OF 
INGRATITUDE—they have served us, and we will serve them. 

“JOSEPH SMITH, 
“Lieutenant-General of the Nauvoo Legion.” 


Both the italics and the capitals are Joseph Smith’s. One can 
readily understand how angry such a document would make the 
candidates whose election it opposed, and it was impossible for 
Joseph Smith to switch his support from one party to the other 
without thoroughly antagonizing both of them. He had lost the 
friendship of the Whigs, who had granted him his powerful 
charter, by supporting the Democrats in the campaign for gov- 
ernor in 1842. He lost the friendship of the Democrats by 
advising his people on other occasions to vote for Whig candi- 
dates. 

The abuse Joseph Smith exercised of the political influence his 
position as a Prophet gave him is illustrated by the contest for 
Congress between Cyrus Walker and Joseph. P. Hoge. The 
Prophet had supported Cyrus Walker, had introduced him to 
the Mormons whenever he made campaign speeches and had ex- 
pressed his intention of voting for Mr. Walker, because he had 
been converted to the wishes of the Mormons. “If he continues 
converted,’ Joseph Smith remarked to his entire congregation, 
“T will vote for him.” But some one at the state capital assured 
the Mormon representative that if the Mormons voted for Hoge, 
the militia would never be used against them. The Saturday be- 


124 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


fore election the Mormons were called together in a mass meet- 
ing. Joseph’s brother Hyrum, who was then Patriarch of the 
Church, told the meeting that God had revealed the command ~ 
that the Mormons must vote for Joseph P. Hoge for Congress. 
One of the Mormons, William Law, arose in the meeting and 
expressed it as his emphatic opinion that God had revealed no 
such thing. Law pointed out that Joseph Smith, God’s Prophet, 
had supported Cyrus Walker, and that Joseph being the main 
receptacle of revelation would be more likely to know the mind 
of the Lord than Hyrum. The people divided upon that ques- 
tion and were uncertain which candidate to vote for. The next 
day, Sunday, the Prophet appeared in the pulpit and said that 
he had heard that his brother Hyrum had made public a revela- 
tion; personally, he did not believe in revelations concerning elec- 
tions, but he had known Hyrum since they were boys together, 
and he had never known Hyrum to tell a lie. If Hyrum said that 
he had received such a revelation, he had received it, and if the 
Lord told Hyrum to vote for Hoge, the Lord meant it. “When 
the Lord speaks,” said Joseph, “‘let all the earth be silent.” 

The result was that Joseph P. Hoge was elected to Congress 
the following day, and the Whigs, who had been promised the 
Mormon vote, were infuriated. The newspapers, and especially 
those whose politics were Whig, began to devote much attention 
to alleged Mormon enormities. It was contended that the Mor- 
mons were not only dangerous as a body because of the powers 
granted to them in their charters, but that individually they were 
thieves and marauders. The Mormons had increased their wealth 
more rapidly than their neighbors thought possible by honest 
means, and the conclusion the neighbors drew was that the in- 
crease was at the expense of those who lived near them. It was 
said, too, that the Church encouraged thievery by its doctrine 
that sooner or later the property of the Gentiles would come into 
the hands of the Saints, and individuals were charged with antici- 
pating the beneficence of the Lord by taking immediate pos- 
session of some of the cattle and farm products which were 
promised them eventually. The Gentiles maintained that once 
the thieves got their stolen property within the confines of 
Nauvoo, they were protected in their possession of it by Joseph 
Smith’s all-powerful municipal court. 

The first open expression of opposition to the Mormons in 
Illinois came at a mass meeting in June, 1841. It was pointed 


THE LAND OF EGYPT es 


out by the speakers that the Mormons were rapidly increasing in 
numbers and voting power, that their Church controlled their 
votes, and that before long the entire county would be subject to 
a religio-political despotism. The meeting resolved that one-man 
power was repugnant to those who were not Mormons, and that 
they would pledge themselves to vote for any candidates for 
political office who would promise to oppose the growing in- 
fluence of the new religious sect. It was also resolved that the 
Nauvoo charter gave the Mormons too much power, and that it 
was the duty of non-Mormons to vote against any pancicals who 
sought the influence of the Mormon vote. 

The breach was thus clearly defined in its nottieal aspects, but 
there were still other causes of opposition to the Mormons. The 
Gentiles saw their neighbors, who had been regular Methodists 
or respectable Baptists, suddenly turn to this new religion, which 
the Methodist and Baptist clergymen assured them was an 
abomination in the sight of the Lord. Friends, whose company 
and common sense they had always valued, became convinced of 
the truth of Mormonism and joined the new sect. This aroused 
their neighbors to the spreading danger of this infectious re- | 
ligion, and unless they were baptized themselves, they became 
virulent anti-Mormons. Another cause of dissension was the 
fact that the largest numbers of converts the Mormons brought 
to Nauvoo from Europe were Englishmen and Englishwomen. 
The War of the Revolution and the War of 1812 had by no 
means been forgotten, and large numbers of Americans felt that 
hostility to England and to Englishmen was something of a 
patriotic duty. 

A bill was finally introduced into the Illinois legislature de- 
manding the repeal of the Nauvoo charter. William Smith, a 
brother of the Prophet, who then held a seat in the legislature, 
moved an amendment to the title of the measure so that the bill 
would read, ‘‘A bill for an act to humbug the citizens of Nauvoo.” 
The opposition to the Mormons was not yet widespread enough, 
and their political influence was still too great, so that the measure 
was not passed. 

Meanwhile, Joseph Smith had been arrested several times on 
charges made by angry Missouri officials, who were still annoyed 
that the man whom they chose to regard as an archfiend, and 
who, in their opinion, would be much better dead than alive, had 
escaped them and was prospering ina nearby state. Ex-Governor 


126 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Lillburn W. Boggs, who had been most active in opposition to 
the Mormons, was then a candidate for the Missouri Senate, and 
on the sixth of May, 1842, as he was seated by the window of 
his house enjoying the spring breezes, a pistol charged with 
buckshot was fired into his face from an adjoining window. 
Three of the shots lodged in his head, and when his son rushed 
into the room, he found his father helpless on the floor, with the 
pistol under the window frame and the footprints of a stranger 
leading from the window. 

As soon as Boggs recovered, he accused Joseph Smith, Jr., of 
instigating the attempt to assassinate him, and Orrin Porter Rock- 
well, one of the Prophet’s bodyguard, of executing that attempt. 
Joseph Smith replied to this charge in a letter to the Quincy 
Whig. He.pointed out that Boggs was a candidate for office, 
and, “I presume, fell by the hand of a political opponent, with 
his hands and face dripping with the blood of murder.” How- 
ever, even in the Wild West, it was not customary for state sena- 
torial candidates to assassinate each other. Boggs took legal 
action to extradite Joseph Smith from Illinois so that he might 
be tried in Missouri for murder. 

At the hearing before Judge Pope on this demand for the 
person of the Prophet, Joseph Smith was attended by his Twelve 
Apostles, and the Judge, who was described by a contemporary 
as “a gallant gentleman of the old school,’ was encircled by 
ladies, who were defined as both brilliant and beautiful. Mr. 
Butterfield, the Prophet’s attorney, took advantage of the scene 
in his opening words: “‘May it please the Court; I appear before 
you to-day under circumstances most novel and peculiar. I am 
to address the ‘Pope,’” and he bowed low to the Judge, “sur- 
rounded by angels,’ and he bowed still lower to the ladies, ‘‘in the 
presence of the Holy Apostles, in behalf of the Prophet of the 
Lord,” and he began a passionate plea for his client. The Prophet 
urged that the writ was illegal because it referred to him as 
Joseph Smith, Jr., whereas he was now Joseph Smith, Sen., owing 
to the lamented death of his father a few months before. This 
was not his principal legal objection to the writ, but he seems 
to have attached great importance to it. When it was proved 
that Joseph Smith had not been in Missouri, and that there was 
no evidence to prove that he had sent any one there, the Prophet 
was discharged, much to the disgust of the Missourians and some 
of Smith’s neighbors. But they did not rest with the decision 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 127 


of this court, and several attempts were made to arrest Smith and 
carry him off to Missouri on charges varying from murder to 
treason. When agents were sent to arrest him, the Prophet, who 
was also the Mayor, retaliated by arresting his arrestors on a 
charge of false imprisonment, and the ludicrous spectacle was 
presented of Smith in the custody of an officer who was himself 
in the custody of a sheriff. 

One of the Prophet’s trials was held before Stephen A. Doug- © 
las, who found it necessary to clear his court of rowdies by the 
use of a large Kentucky sheriff before he could proceed without 
interference from people who were more anxious for Smith’s 
punishment than for justice. After the trial, at which the Prophet 
was acquitted, Douglas invited him to dinner, and Smith related 
his persecutions for three hours. He also gave Judge Douglas 
this prophecy: “Judge, you will aspire to the Presidency of the 
United States; and if you ever turn your hand against me or the 
Latter-day Saints, you will feel the weight of the hand of the 
Almighty upon you; and you will live to see and know that I 
have testified the truth to you; for the conversation of this day 
will stick to you through life.” Fourteen years later Douglas 
made a speech at Springfield, Illinois, It was at the period in 
1857 when opposition to the Mormons was becoming federal in- 
stead of a mere neighborly state reaction. In the course of his 
speech Douglas became virulently oratorical and said concerning 
the Mormon problem: “Should such a state of things actually 
exist as we are led to infer from the reports—and such informa- 
tion comes in an official shape—the knife must be applied to this 
pestiferous, disgusting cancer which is gnawing into the very 
vitals of the body politic. It must be cut out by the roots, and 
seared:over by the red hot iron of stern and unflinching law. .. . 
To’ protect them further in their treasonable, disgusting and 
bestial practices would be a disgrace to the country—a disgrace 
to humanity—a disgrace to civilization, and a disgrace to the 
spirit of the age... .” Brigham H. Roberts, a Mormon writer, 
described Douglas’s ensuing punishment in the following words: 


“Stephen A. Douglas did aspire to the presidency of the United 
States. He received the nomination for that high office, from a 
great political party. But he had raised his hand against the Latter- 
day Saints, the people of the prophet Joseph Smith; and as a con- 
sequence he did feel the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon 
him; for his hopes were blasted; he never reached the goal of his 


128 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


ambition; he failed miserably, and died wretchedly, when his life 
had but reached high noon. Could anything be more clear than 
that Stephen A. Douglas felt the weight of the hand of the Almighty 
upon him? But mark you, these calamities came upon him for strik- 
ing at the saints of God in Utah. It was for turning his hand 
against them that he was disappointed in his hopes, blasted in his 
expectations, and died heart-broken.” 


But history differs with this firm conviction of the Latter-day 
Saints; history believes that the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the 
Dred Scott decision had something to do with the defeat and the 
subsequent broken heart of Stephen A. Douglas. 

Sometimes when he was arrested by Missouri sheriffs, Joseph 
Smith discharged himself by issuing through his own municipal 
court of Nauvoo his own writ of habeas corpus. He once pleas- 
antly described this process as pulling Missouri to Nauvoo. The 
municipal council of Nauvoo also passed an ordinance making it 
an offense, punishable by imprisonment for life in the city prison, 
to arrest Joseph Smith until after he was tried by the municipal 
court of Nauvoo. These arbitrary acts aroused the Gentiles to 
a fury that was all the more dangerous because for the moment 
it was impotent. And the Prophet himself was also aroused. 
He was weary of arrest and discharge, sheriffs and writs, and 
after one of his arrests he delivered before his assembled people a 
fiery speech in the course of which he offered this angry advice: 


“Tf any citizens of Illinois say we shall not have our rights, treat 
them as strangers and not friends, and let them go to hell and be 
damned! If we have to give up our chartered rights, privileges, 
and freedom, which our fathers fought, bled, and died for, and 
which the constitution of the United States and of this state guar- 
antee unto us, we will do it only at the point of the sword and 
bayonet. .. . But before I will bear this unhallowed persecution 
any longer—before I will be dragged away again among my enemies 
for trial, I will spill the last drop of blood in my veins, and will 
see all my enemies in hell! To bear it any longer would be a sin, 
and I will not bear it any longer. Shall we bear it any longer? (One 
universal ‘No!’ ran through all the vast assembly, like a peal of 
thunder.) 

“I say in the name of Jesus Christ by the authority of the holy 
priesthood, I this day turn the key that opens the heavens to 
restrain you no longer from this time forth. I will lead you to the 
battle; and if you are not afraid to die, and feel disposed to spill 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 129 


your blood in your own defense, you will not offend me. Be not 
the aggressor: bear until they strike you on the one cheek; then 
offer the other, and they will be sure to strike that; then defend 
yourselves, and God will bear you off, and you shall stand forth 
clear before his tribunal. . . . If mobs come upon you any more 
here, dung your gardens with them.” ? 


It is said that Smith’s arrest for the attempted assassination of 
Ex-Governor Lillburn W. Boggs was instigated by John C. Ben- 
nett, who had quarreled with the Prophet, and who was then 
writing articles for newspapers describing the knavery of Nauvoo. 
These sensational articles were collected by Bennett into a scur- 
rilous book, in which for the first time details of the practice of 
polygamy among the Mormons were revealed. 


IV 


We have already noted the rumors that the Mormons before 
they left Ohio believed in having more wives than one, and they 
themselves have since admitted that the Prophet Joseph Smith 
first heard of polygamy from God some time in the year 1831. 
Although he was not yet permitted to make the doctrine public, 
he spoke of it to several of his most faithful followers. The 
frequent denials during the lifetime of the Prophet that polygamy 
was any part of the Mormon religion, or that it was ever prac- 
tised, have caused his followers no embarrassment since his death. 
They blandly admit that the denials were false, and they do not 
hesitate to make a liar of their Prophet, with the sincere belief 
that a lie for the cause will be promptly forgiven in heaven, and 
that it can only be called a real lie by non-Mormons, who are 
usually wicked and perverse anyway. This attitude on the part 
of the Mormons is made necessary by the propaganda of a schis- 
matic branch of the Church, the Reorganized Church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was founded on the principle 
that Joseph Smith never practised polygamy or even preached it. 
In order to prove their opponents heterodox, the Utah Mormons 
have produced a wealth of evidence that convicts their Prophet of 
deception, but they rest comfortably in the assurance that all is 
fair when God is on the right side, and they offer eminent prece- 
dents from the Bible. - 


7 History of the Church, vol. 5, pp. 466-469. _ 


130 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


The Prophet made several early attempts to tell his people some- 
thing of this new and secret dispensation from heaven. His » 
cousin, George A. Smith, subsequently described one of these 
attempts: ““Whereupon, the Prophet goes up on the stand, and, 
after preaching about everything else he could think of in the 
world, at last hints at the idea of the law of redemption, makes a 
bare hint at the law of sealing, and it produced such a tremen- 
dous excitement that, as soon as he had got his dinner half eaten, 
he had to go back to the stand and unpreach all that he had 
preached, and left the people to guess at the matter.” * 

It is said that Joseph Smith practised polygamy before he 
preached it, and that he found it necessary to clear himself in 
the eyes of his first wife Emma by making his failings divine. 
This seems the most logical theory. We know that he was always 
intensely interested in women, and he is credited with the re- 
mark to a friend, “Whenever I see a pretty woman I have to 
pray for grace.’ The only parts of the Bible which he did not 
interpret literally were those commandments which forbid 
adultery and coveting a neighbor’s wife. The habits of Abra- 
ham, Jacob, Solomon, and David influenced Joseph Smith’s own 
life, and he finally felt that he must know whether they had lived 
in sin or in promiscuity by the grace of God. Who would know 
better than God himself? Joseph Smith took the matter directly 
to Him, and on January 12, 1843, at Nauvoo, he received this 
reply: 


“Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that 
inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand, to know and under- 
stand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob; as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as 
touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and 
concubines : | 

“Behold! and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee 
as touching this matter :” 


God then went on to say that there was an universal and eternal 
law, which all who would be saved must obey, and that all who 
rejected it would be most assuredly damned. According to this 
law, all contracts; oaths, vows, and obligations in order to be 
binding in eternity must be sealed by the Holy Spirit, and Joseph 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 217. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 131 


Smith, Jr., was the only person on earth at that time appointed 
to administer this sealing. This applied especially to the mar- 
riage covenant, and unless a man and woman were sealed in mar- 
riage according to the Holy Spirit they would not be considered 
married when they reached heaven and would become the mere 
servants of those who were so sealed. God then assured Joseph 
Smith that Abraham had done everything he had done by the 
command of the Lord, whose purpose was to raise up a populous 
people unto His name out of the loins of the Patriarch. “Go’ 
ye, therefore,” said God to Joseph Smith, “and do the works of 
Abraham; enter ye into my law, and ye shall be saved.” Joseph 
Smith did not have to be told twice. 

The Lord also added that Abraham’s concubines, Solomon’s 
and David’s too, with the single exception of the latter’s irregu- 
lar affair with Uriah’s wife, were all recognized as legal in the 
sight of the Lord, and that they had all gained salvation by obey- 
ing His command to cleave unto their righteous husbands. The 
Lord then said that He gave unto Joseph Smith, Jr., the power 
to restore all things as they were in the good old days, and that 
this portion of the restoration was as important as any. God also 
gave Joseph Smith specific power to take any woman away from 
a husband who had committed adultery and give her to a faith- 
ful, righteous brother. Joseph’s decisions on this matter, and also 
all the plural marriages that he authorized, would be recognized 
in the celestial kingdom. Then there followed interesting specific 
commands for Joseph’s wife Emma: 


“Verily, I say unto you, a commandment I give unto mine hand- 
maid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that 
she stay herself, and partake not of that which I commanded you 
to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, 
as I did Abraham; and that I might require an offering at your 
hand, by covenant and sacrifice.” 


This would seem to indicate that Joseph had offered Emma the 
privileges of polyandry in return for those of polygamy, but that 
God rescinded that offer by declaring it to be only one of His 
little Job-like temptations. God also enjoined Emma: 


“And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have 
been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure 
before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were 
pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God. ... 


132 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and 
cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will 
not abide this commandment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; 
for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her, if she abide not 
in my law; 

“But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my 
servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I 
will bless him and multiply him, and give unto him an hundred-fold 
in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses 
and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the 
eternal worlds. 

“And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant 
Joseph his trespasses; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, 
wherein she has trespassed against me; and IJ, the Lord thy God, 
will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice.” 


These instructions to Emma Smith were made necessary by her 
reaction to the practice of polygamy by her husband during the 
several years before this revelation was received in writing from 
God. He had before he received this revelation already taken 
unto himself twelve wives, according to the Mormon records.° 
All of these twelve wives Joseph married without the consent. 
of Emma, and they all lived in the same house with Emma. “She © 
for some time supposed,” one writer recorded, “‘that his object in 
having them there was purely a charitable one.”’ Perhaps; but 
very soon she came to believe that this kind of charity does not 
begin at home, for she threatened to leave her Prophet husband 
with full attendant publicity unless the dozen young girls who 
were living with them left first. The Prophet attempted defiance, 
but he feared the publicity, for his neighbors were making enough 
trouble for him at the moment... His more recent wives were 
removed to other parts of Nauvoo. Finally, after much per- 
suasion Emma did consent to allow her husband two additional 
wives, if she might be permitted to choose them. She chose 
Emily Dow Partridge and Eliza M. Partridge, two sisters, who 
had lived in the Prophet’s house because their own family were 
too poor to support them. They were about nineteen years old 
and eighteen years old respectively. This was a lucky choice for 
the Prophet, for he had taken the privilege of marrying these 
two girls several months before Emma chose them as his future 


® The Historical Record, May, 1887, pp. 233-234. 





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THE LAND OF EGYPT 133 


wives, according to an autobiographical sketch written by one of 
them. To save family trouble, this sketch said, the Prophet 
“thought it best to have another ceremony performed,” which 
was done on May 11, 1843, in the presence of Emma Smith. 
But even after the ceremony and her own choice, Emma could 
only endure her rivals for several months, and they were then 
removed to a house elsewhere in Nauvoo. 

Sister Emma Smith was described at this time by an impartial 
observer as “a gaunt, stern, hard-visaged woman of middle age.” 
This fact, perhaps, was the main influence in the trend of Joseph 
Smith’s mind towards polygamy. Naturally her treatment of the 
young women with whom her husband filled the house was 
tempered by jealousy and envy. The jealousy of the Prophet’s 
wife and the suspicions of his followers were probably responsible 
for that part of the revelation on polygamy which makes it clear 
that the practice was designed purely for utilitarian purposes 
rather than for the satisfaction of esthetic sensibilities or biologi- 
cal sensations. After He had made clear the relation of Emma 
to the polygamous wives, God said to Joseph Smith: 


“And again, as pertaining to the law of the Priesthood: If any 
man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first 
give her consent; and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, 
and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot 
commit adultery, for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit 
adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else; 

“And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot 
commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto 
him, therefore is he justified. 

“But if one or other of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, 
shall be with another man; she has committed adultery, and shall 
be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish 
the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfill the promise 
which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world; 
and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the 
souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that 
he may be glorified... . 

“And now, as pertaining to this law, verily, verily, I say unto you, 
I will reveal more unto you, hereafter; therefore, let this suffice for 
the present. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen.” ?° 


10 The complete revelation concerning plurality of wives is published in Sec- 
tion 132 of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. 


134 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


But God did not keep this promise; He revealed no more con- 
cerning plurality of wives, as the Mormons prefer to call 
polygamy. Whatever developments came afterwards were the 
result of human trial and error in the practice of the principle. 

The actual composition of this remarkable revelation from 
heaven was described in detail by William Clayton, who acted as 
the Prophet’s amanuensis for the occasion: 


“On the morning of the 12th of July, 1843, Joseph and Hyrum 
came into the office in the upper story of the ‘brick store,’ on the 
bank of the Mississippi River. They were talking on the subject 
of plural marriage. Hyrum said to Joseph, ‘If you will write the 
revelation on celestial marriage, I will take and read it to Emma, 
and I. believe I can convince her of its truth, and you will here- 
after have peace.’ Joseph smiled and remarked, “You do not know 
Emma as well as I do.’ Hyrum repeated his opinion and further 
remarked, ‘The doctrine is so plain, I can convince any reasonable 
man or woman of its truth, purity or heavenly origin,’ or words to 
that effect. Joseph then said, ‘Well, I will write the revelation 
and we will see.’ He then requested me to get paper and prepare 
to write. Hyrum very urgently requested Joseph to write the reve- 
lation by means of the Urim and Thummim, but Joseph, in reply, 
said he did not need to, for he knew the revelation perfectly from 
beginning to end. 

“Joseph and Hyrum then sat down and Joseph commenced to 
dictate the revelation on celestial marriage, and I wrote it sentence 
by sentence, as he dictated. After the whole was written, Joseph 
asked me to read it through, slowly and carefully, which I did, and 
he pronounced it correct. He then remarked that there was much 
more that he could write on the same subject, but what was written 
was sufficient for the present. 

“Hyrum then took the revelation to read to Emma. Joseph re- 
mained with me in the office until Hyrum returned. When he 
came back, Joseph asked him how he had succeeded. Hyrum re- 
plied that he had never received a more severe talking to in his life, 
that Emma was very bitter and full of resentment and anger. 

“Joseph quietly remarked, ‘I told you you did not know Emma 
as well as I do.’ Joseph then put the revelation in his pocket, and 
they both left the office.” *# 


That same evening Joseph Smith showed the revelation to a 
few leaders of the Church, and Bishop Newel K. Whitney asked 
if he might make a copy of it. Joseph consented, and it was 


11 William Clayton’s testimony in The Historical Record, pp. 224-226. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 135 


fortunate that he did so, for two or three days later Emma 
teased Joseph to allow her to destroy the revelation. Brigham 
Young once described the scene in a sermon: 


“After Joseph had been to Bishop Whitney’s he went home, and 
Emma began teasing for the revelation. Said she—‘Joseph, you 
promised me that revelation, and if you are a man of your word you 
will give it to me.’ Joseph took it from his pocket and said—‘Take 
it.’ She went to the fire-place and put it in, and put the candle under 
it and burnt it, and she thought that was the end of it, and she will 
be damned as sure as she is a living woman. Joseph used to say 
that he would have her hereafter, if he had to go to hell for her, 
and he will have to go to hell for her as sure as he ever gets her.” *? 


An anti-Mormon writer added a characteristic, fictitious senti- 
mental detail to this scene of the burning of the revelation. He 
wrote that the Prophet’s wife used a tongs, “unwilling, as any 
pure woman would be, to have her fingers come in contact with 
the vile document.” . 

The Prophet’s wife was not the only one difficult to convince 
of the divine origin of polygamy. At first it was too revolu- 
tionary to appeal even to his most ardent associates, and Joseph 
Smith quietly and patiently convinced them by personal conversa- 
tion in the course of long walks in the woods. Even before he 
had committed the doctrine to writing, the Prophet carried on 
secret propaganda for it. He was living in polygamy himself, 
and in order to justify his own conduct, it was necessary that 
his followers should adopt the practice. William Clayton told 
the interesting story of how the Prophet first broke the news of 
the new principle to him: 


“During this period the Prophet Joseph frequently visited my 
house in my company, and became well acquainted with my wife, 
Ruth, to whom I had been married five years. One day in the 
month of February, 1843, date not remembered, the Prophet invited 
me to walk with him. During our walk, he said he had learned 
that there was a sister back in England, to whom I was very much 
attached. I replied there was, but nothing further than an attach- 
ment such as a brother and sister in the Church might rightfully 
entertain for each other. He then said, ‘Why don’t you send for 
her?’ I replied, ‘In the first place, I have no authority to send for 
her, and if I had, I have not the means to pay expenses.’ To this 


12 Journal of Discourses, vol. 17, p. 159. 


136 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


he answered, ‘I give you authority to send for her, and I will furnish 
you with means,’ which he did... . After giving me lengthy in- 
structions and information concerning the doctrine of celestial or 
plural marriage, he concluded his remarks by the words, ‘It is your 
privilege to have all the wives you want.’ . . . He also informed me 
that he had other wives living besides his first wife Emma, and in 
particular gave me to understand that Eliza R. Snow, Louisa Beman, 
Desdemona W. Fullmer and others were his lawful wives in the 
sight of Heaven. 

“On the 27th of April, 1843, the Prophet Joseph Smith married 
to me Margaret Moon, for time and eternity, at the residence of 
Elder Heber C. Kimball; and on the 22nd of July, 1843, he married 
to me, according to the order of the Church, my first wife Ruth.” ** 


William Clayton was an easy convert to the new doctrine, but 
some of the others were more difficult to convince of its benefits 
and righteousness. Even Brother Hyrum did not regard 
polygamy as expedient when he first heard of it: “He said to 
Joseph that if he attempted to introduce the practice of that 
doctrine as a tenet of The Church it would break up The Church 
and cost him his life. ‘Well,’ Joseph replied, ‘it is a command- 
ment from God, brother Hyrum, and if you don’t believe it, if 
you will ask the Lord He will make it known to you.’” * 
Hyrum asked the Lord, and he received in reply exactly the same 
revelation that Joseph had committed to paper. 

‘ Many years later Brigham Young described his emotions on 
first learning that polygamy was necessary to salvation: 


“Some of these my brethren know what my feelings were at the 
time Joseph revealed the doctrine; I was not desirous of shrinking 
from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, 
but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and 
I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a 
funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I 
was not in the coffin, knowing the toil and labor that my body would 
have to undergo; and I have had to examine myself, from that day 
to this, and watch my faith, and carefully meditate, lest I should 
be found desiring the grave more than I ought to do.” 


However, these thoughts of the grave did not prevent Brigham 
Young from doing his duty: he married eight women while he 
18 The Historical Record, pp. 224-226. 


14 Succession in the Presidency, by Brigham H. Roberts, pp. 123-124. 
15 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 266. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 137 


remained in Nauvoo, and in later years, as we shall see, he did 
not shirk the responsibilities which God had so urgently enjoined. 
When Joseph Smith first began to discuss polygamy with his 
followers, Brigham Young and the other eleven Apostles were in 
England. As soon as they returned, they were taught the new 
doctrine. John Taylor, a leader of the Church and successor to 
Brigham Young in the Presidency, wrote his reaction to it: 


“Joseph Smith told the Twelve that if this law was not practiced, 
if they would not enter into this covenant, then the Kingdom of God 
could not go one step further. Now, we did not feel like preventing 
the Kingdom of God from going forward. We professed to be the 
Apostles of the Lord, and did not feel like putting ourselves in a 
position to retard the progress of the Kingdom of God. The reve- 
lation says that ‘All those who have this law revealed unto them 
must obey the same.’ Now, that is not my word. I did not make 
it. It was the Prophet of God who revealed that to us in Nauvoo, 
and I bear witness of this solemn fact before God, that he did 
reveal this sacred principle to me and others of the Twelve. ... 

“T had always entertained strict ideas of virtue, and I felt as a 
married man that this was to me, outside of this principle, an 
appalling thing to do. The idea of going and asking a young lady 
to be married to me when I had already a wife! It was a thing 
calculated to stir up feelings from the innermost depths of the 
human soul. I had always entertained the strictest regard of 
chastity. .. . Hence with the feelings I had entertained, nothing 
but a knowledge of God, and the revelations of God, and the truth 
of them, could have induced me to embrace such a principle as this. 

“We seemed to put off, as far as we could, what might be termed 
the evil day. 

“Some time after these things were made known to us, I was 
riding out of Nauvoo on horseback, and met Joseph Smith coming 
in, he, too, being on horseback. . . . I bowed to Joseph, and having 
done the same to me, he said: ‘Stop;’ and he looked at me very 
intently. ‘Look here,’ said he, ‘those things that have been spoken 
of must be fulfilled, and if they are not entered into right away the © 
keys will be turned.’ 

“Well, what did I do? Did I feel to stand in the way of this 
great eternal principle, and treat lightly the things of God? No. I 
replied: ‘Brother Joseph, 1 will try and carry these things out.” *° 


And John Taylor swallowed his medicine like a man, for within 
two years after this conversation he had married Elizabeth 


16 Life of John Taylor, by Elder B. H. Roberts, p. ror. 


138 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Haigham, Jane Ballantyne, and Mary A. Oakley. Later in Utah 
he continued to carry forward the Kingdom of God by adding 
regularly to his household. 

In order to reinforce his argument with his associates, the 
Prophet told them, and they earnestly believed him, that he had 
delayed practising ‘polygamy as long as possible, until finally an 
angel of God, carrying a drawn sword, appeared to him and 
threatened angrily that unless he “moved forward and established 
plural marriage, his priesthood would be taken from him and he 
should be destroyed.”’ 

Lorenzo Snow, the brother of the Mormon poetess, Eliza 
Snow, was a bachelor before he heard of divine polygamy, and 
in her biography of him his sister wrote that he had always re- 
garded marriage as a luxury and an encumbrance for a man 
whose duty necessitated wandering about the country preaching. 
But Joseph Smith quickly convinced him that marriage was a 
multiple necessity. “It is one of his peculiarities,’ wrote his 
sister, with sincere admiration and incredible naiveté, “to do noth- 
ing by halves; and when convinced of the duty of marriage, and 
that it was a privilege accorded him in connection with his minis- 
terial calling, he entered into it on an enlarged scale, by having 
two wives sealed to him in the holy bonds of matrimony, for time 
and eternity, at the same time; and not long after, another was 
added, to the number, and then another. Thus, all at once, as it 
were, from the lone bachelor he was transformed into a husband 
invested with many domestic responsibilities. Probably a realiz- 
ing sense of the fact that he had arrived at the mature age of 
thirty-one years in celibacy, suggested to him the propriety of 
making up for lost time by more than ordinary effort, and out 
of the old beaten track.” *” 

It was rather important that Joseph Smith should convert 
Lorenzo Snow to plural marriage, for the Prophet had taken the 
privilege of marrying his sister and biographer while the brother 
was in England. 

If we can believe their testimony, polygamy shocked all of the 
elders at first, but as soon as they began the actual practice of its 
privileges, they seemed satisfied of its divine origin. Their Puri- 
tan worship of chastity caused them to be revolted at the idea of 
polygamy, but that barrier was easily overcome by quotations 
from the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon, 

17 Biography of Lorenzo Snow, by Eliza R. Snow Smith, pp. 69-70. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 139 


and before long the Mormon elders were willing to experiment 
with the system themselves; as soon as they had experimented 
with it themselves, it took all the legal power of the United States 
government, as we shall see, to persuade these elders who had 
reluctantly entered upon its practice as part of their duty in this 
vale of tears, that polygamy was illegal, even if it were divine. 

Heber C. Kimball had a particularly trying experience. Joseph 
Smith taught him polygamy as soon as Kimball returned from 
England with Brigham Young and the other Apostles. But 
Joseph warned him, as he had the others, to tell the secret to 
no one, for if he did, the Prophet’s enemies would be sure to use 
it as an excuse to return him to Missouri for slaughter. Heber 
Kimball was forbidden to confide even in the wife he had mar- 
ried many years before. But Kimball was afraid that if he began 
to practise polygamy without telling his wife, she might hear of 
it from other sources—a very natural fear—and he told Joseph 
Smith how terrible such a blow would be to the wife he loved 
deeply. The Prophet, sympathizing with him, inquired of the 
Lord, whose answer was, “Tell him to go and do as he has been 
commanded, and if I see that there is any danger of his aposta- 
tizing, I will take him to myself.” Kimball’s daughter, Helen 
Mar Kimball, wrote a description of her father’s pitiable situa- 
tion: 


“When first hearing the principle taught, believing that he would 
be called upon to enter it, he had thought of two elderly ladies named 
Pitkin, great friends of my mother’s, who, he believed, would cause 
her little if any unhappiness. But the woman he was commanded 
to take was an English lady named Sarah Noon, nearer my mother’s 
age, who came over with the company of Saints in the same ship 
in which father and Brother Brigham returned from Europe. She 
had been married and was the mother of two little girls, but left 
her husband on account of his drunken and dissolute habits. 
Father was told to take her as his wife and provide for her and 
her children, and he did so. 

“My mother had noticed a change in his manner and appearance, 
and when she inquired the cause, he tried to evade her questions. 
At last he promised he would tell her after a while, if she would 
only wait. This trouble so worked upon his mind that his anxious 
and haggard looks betrayed him daily and hourly, and finally his 
misery became so unbearable that it was impossible to control his 
feelings. He became sick in body, but his mental wretchedness was 
too great to allow of his retiring, and he would walk the floor till 


140 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


nearly morning, and sometimes the agony of his mind was so terrible 
that he would wring his hands and weep like a child, and beseech 
the Lord to be merciful and reveal to her this principle, for he 
himself could not break his vow of secrecy. 

“The anguish of their hearts was indescribable, and when she 
found it was useless to beseech him longer, she retired to her room 
and bowed down before the Lord and poured out her soul in prayer 
to Him who hath said: ‘If any lack wisdom let him ask of God, who 
giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.’ My father’s heart 
was raised at the same time in supplication. While pleading as one 
would plead for life, the vision of her mind was opened, and as 
darkness flees before the morning sun, so did her sorrow and the 
groveling things of earth vanish away. 

“Before her was illustrated the order of celestial marriage, in all 
its beauty and glory, together with the great exaltation and honor 
it would confer upon her in that immortal and celestial sphere, if 
she would accept it and stand in her place by her husband’s side. 
She also saw the woman he had taken to wife, and contemplated 
with joy the vast and boundless love and union which this order 
would bring about, as well as the increase of her husband’s king- 
doms, and the power and glory extending throughout the eternities, 
worlds without end. 

“With a countenance beaming with joy, for she was filled with 
the Spirit of God, she returned to my father, saying: ‘Heber, what 
you kept from me the Lord has shown me.’ She told me she never 
saw so happy a man as father was when she described the vision 
and told him she was satisfied and knew it was from God. 

“She covenanted to stand by him and honor the principle, which 
covenant she faithfully kept, and though her trials were often heavy 
and grievous to bear, she knew that father was also being tried, 
and her integrity was unflinching to the end. She gave my father 
many wives, and they always found in my mother a faithful 
friend.” 1° 


Mrs. Heber C. Kimball was not of a suspicious nature, for it 
never seemed to occur to her as of any significance that her hus- 
band should be instructed by God to marry the woman with whom 
he had traveled from Europe upon his return from his mission. 

Some women, however, were more incredulous and suspicious 
than Mrs. Kimball, and they were accordingly difficult to convert. 
There was, for instance, the case of sixteen-year-old Lucy 
Walker, whose conversion to polygamy is a unique example of 


18 Statement of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, published in The Mormon 
Prophet's Tragedy, by Orson F. Whitney, pp. 37-41. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT | 14] 


the Prophet’s methods with women, Ina letter which was pub- 
lished in the Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints by Lyman Omer 
Littlefield Lucy Walker wrote: 


“In the year 1842 President Joseph Smith sought an interview 
_ with me and said: ‘I have a message for you. I have been com- 
manded of God to take another wife, and you are the woman.’ My 
astonishment knew no bounds. This announcement was indeed a 
thunderbolt to me. He asked me if I believed him to be a prophet 
of God. ‘Most assuredly I do,’ I replied. He fully explained to 
me the principle of plural or celestial marriage. Said this principle 
was again to be restored for the benefit of the human family. That 
it would prove an everlasting blessing to my father’s house, and 
form a chain that could never be broken, worlds without end. 
‘What have you to say?’ he asked. ‘Nothing. How could I speak, 
or what could I say?’ He said, ‘If you will pray sincerely for light 
and understanding in relation thereto, you shall receive a testimony 
- of the correctness of this principle.’ ”’ 


Lucy Walker prayed, but her soul was in anguish, and there was 
nothing but darkness. ‘‘No mother to counsel; no father near 
to tell me what to do in this trying hour.”” The Prophet visited 
her again and assured her that polygamy was the will of God. 
“T will give you until to-morrow,” he added, “‘to decide this 
matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed for- 
ever against you.” ‘This,’ wrote Lucy Walker, “aroused every 
drop of Scotch in my veins. . . . I had been speechless, but at 
last found utterance and said: ‘Although you are a prophet of 
God you could not induce me to take a step of so great im- 
portance, unless I knew that God approved my course. I would 
rather die. I have tried to pray but received no comfort, no 
light,’ and emphatically forbid him speaking again to me on this 
subject. Every feeling of my soul revolted against it. Said I, 
‘The same God who has sent this message is the Being I have 
worshiped from my early childhood and He must manifest His 
will to me.’ He walked across the room, returned and stood be- 
fore me with the most beautiful expression of countenance, and 
said: ‘God Almighty bless you. You shall have a manifestation 
of the will of God concerning you; a testimony that you can never 
deny. I will tell you what it shall be. It shall be that joy and 
_ peace that you never knew.’”’ Then Lucy Walker prayed for the 
fulfilment of this prophecy and spent the ensuing nights in 
sleepless anguish, 


142 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“It was near dawn after another sleepless night,” she wrote, 
“when my room was lighted up by a heaveniy influence. To me 
it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the 
darkest cloud. The words of the Prophet were indeed fulfilled. 
My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that ‘I never knew.’ 
Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful 
and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, which has 
been like an anchor to the soul through all the trials of life. I felt 
that I must go out into the morning air and give vent to the joy 
and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, Presi- 
dent Smith opened the door below, took me by the hand and said: 
‘Thank God, you have the testimony. I, too, have prayed.’ He led 
me to a chair, placed his hands upon my head, and blessed me with 
every blessing my heart could possibly desire. 

“The first day of May, 1843, I consented to become the Prophet’s 
wife, and was sealed to him for time and all eternity, at his own 
house by Elder Wm. Clayton.” 


Lucy Walker was married the day after her seventeenth birth- 
day. In that month of May, 1843, the Prophet added four wives 
to the nine he already had, and all of the four were less than 
twenty years of age. Lucy Walker’s conversion to plural mar- 
riage by means of heavenly brilliance and the conviction that it 
was the will of God was not unusual. Joseph Smith’s career 
furnishes other examples of the same process, and psychologists 
are familiar with it. Lucy Walker knew what to expect from 
God, for Joseph Smith had told her how her dark cloud of doubt 
would be dispelled by the light of inner joy and peace. It re- 
quired to convert her only a few sleepless nights and the desire, 
perhaps subconscious, to be one of the wives of the Prophet, 
whose “beautiful expression of countenance,” she had noted even 
in the anguish of her despair. If it was all right with God, it 
was all right with her, and she did not have to wait long for 
God’s permission. In fact, Lucy Walker became so convinced 
of the divinity of plural marriage that after the Prophet’s death 
she became one of the wives of Heber C. Kimball and bore him 
nine children; but this latter connection was for time only, for 
she already had an engagement for eternity with the Prophet. 
In her letter concerning her conversion Lucy Walker added: “In 
this I acted in accordance with the will of God. Not for any 
worldly aggrandizement; not for the gratification of the flesh. 
How can it be said we accepted this principle for any lustful 
desires? Preposterous! This would be utterly impossible. But, 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 143 


as I said before, we accepted it to obey a command of God, to 
establish a principle that would benefit the human family and 
emancipate them from the degradation into which they, through 
their wicked customs, had fallen.”” Perhaps so; but Joseph Smith, 
Jr., was more than six feet tall in his bare feet, and he was uni- 
versally declared to be handsome, even by his numerous enemies. 
Brigham Young once gave this picture of the sealing in mar- 
riage to the Prophet of Brigham Young’s own reluctant sister: 


“T recollect a sister conversing with Joseph Smith on this sub- 
ject: ‘Now, don’t talk to me; when I get into the celestial kingdom, 
if I ever do get there, I shall request the privilege of being a min- 
istering angel; that is the labor that I wish to perform.. I don’t 
want any companion in that world; and if the Lord will make me 
a ministering angel, it is all | want.’ Joseph said, ‘Sister, you talk 
very foolishly, you do not know what you will want.’ He then said 
to me: ‘Here, Brother Brigham, you seal this lady to me.’ I sealed 
her to him. This was my own sister according to the flesh. Now, 
sisters, do not say, ‘I do not want a husband when I get up in 
the resurrection.’ You do not know what you will want. I tell 
this so that you can get the idea. If in the resurrection you really 
want to be single and alone, and live so forever and ever, and be 
made servants, while others receive the highest order of intelligence 
and are bringing worlds into existence, you can have the privilege. 
They who will be exalted cannot perform all the labor, they must 
have servants and you can be servants to them.” ?° 


Either Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were quite arbitrary 
in their sealing activities, or the lady did not protest enough. It 
was, however, rather easy, on the whole, for the Prophet to per- 
suade pious young women to become his concubines, for he had 
conveniently made human love a divine institution. In himself 
he combined both the appeals of sex and religion, for he was a 
six foot, handsome Prophet of God. It was only those women 
who happened to maintain control of their emotions by their 
reason who resisted at all. 

The Prophet was not always so successful when he made ad- 
vances to women who were already married. There was, for 
example, Sarah Pratt, the wife of Orson Pratt. Orson Pratt 
was sent to England to convert the heathen, and in the meantime, 
the Prophet attempted to convert his beautiful wife. John C. 


19 Journal of Discourses, vol. 16, pp. 166-167. 


144 . BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Bennett in his scurrilous Mormonism Exposed wrote that, “Joe’s — 
real object was to CONVERT HER in another way—from virtue, | 
unsophisticated virtue, to vice, soul-damning vice,—from the path 
of innocence and peace, to the polluted way of the libertine,— 
from the pure teachings of heaven’s high King, to the loathsome 
caresses of the beast and the false prophet.” But John C. Ben- 
nett felt strongly on the subject, for he himself was a rival of the 
Prophet’s for the affections of the beautiful lady. This, and 
another clash over the affection of Sidney Rigdon’s daughter 
Nancy, were the causes of hostility between Smith and Bennett. 
Each accused the other of lecherous conduct. We know, how- 
ever, for certain that a scandal resulted when the lady remained 
indignantly virtuous, for Brigham Young noted in his journal 
on August 8, 1842: “Assisted by Elders H. C. Kimball and 
Geo. A. Smith I spent several days laboring with Elder Orson 
Pratt, whose mind became so darkened by the influence and state- 
ments of his wife, that he came out in rebellion against Joseph, 
refusing to believe his testimony or obey his counsel. He said 
he would believe his wife in preference to the Prophet. Joseph 
told him if he did believe his wife and followed her suggestions, 
he would go to hell.” On August 20 Brigham Young noted the 
failure of his persuasive powers by this brief statement in his 
journal: “Brother Orson Pratt was cut off from the Church.” 
However, Pratt repented and was reordained one of the Twelve 
Apostles a few months later. 

Joseph Smith’s attempt to win Nancy Rigdon, Sidney Rigdon’s 
eldest’ daughter, resulted in enmity between him and Sidney 
Rigdon and between him and John C. Bennett, who wanted 
Nancy Rigdon for his own wife. Bennett said later that Smith 
offered him $500 in town lots on Main Street, Nauvoo, if he 
would aid him in persuading Nancy Rigdon to join his spiritual 
harem, ‘The Prophet had previously attempted to kiss Nancy 
Rigdon in his private office, and she threatened to rouse the 
neighborhood by her screams if he did not unlock the door at 
once. He unlocked the door, and then, realizing the mistake he 
had made, he wrote her this letter, which was an ingenious at- 
tempt to justify his conduct by means of his religion: 


“That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often 
is, right under another. God said, Thou shalt not kill; at another 
time he said, Thou shalt utterly destroy. This is the principle on 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 145 


which the government of Heaven is conducted, by Revelation 
adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom 
are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, 
although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events 
transpire. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will 
be added. So with Solomon; first he asked wisdom, and God gave 
it him, and with it every desire of his heart; even things which 
might be considered abominable to all who understand the order of 
Heaven only in part, but which, in reality, were right, because God 
gave and sanctioned by special revelation. A parent may whip a 
child, and justly too, because he stole an apple; whereas, if the child 
had asked for the apple, and the parent had given it, the child 
vould have eaten it with a better appetite; there would have been no 
stripes; all the pleasures of the apple would have been secured, all 
the misery of stealing lost. This principle will justly apply to all 
of God’s dealings with his children. Every thing that God gives us 
is lawful and right, and it is proper that we should enjoy his gifts 
and blessings, whenever and wherever he is disposed to bestow; 
but if we should seize upon those same blessings and enjoyments 
without law, without revelation, without commandment, those bless- 
ings and enjoyments would prove cursings and vexations in the end, 
and we should have to lie down in sorrow and wailings of everlast- 
IE PeOTELS ve.cs( 3° 


Joseph Smith asked Nancy Rigdon to burn this letter, but instead 
she showed it to her father. When the Prophet was accused by 
Nancy Rigdon before her assembled family of attempting to 
seduce her, he blandly admitted the charge was true, but he said 
that he had done so merely to test her virtue. Sidney Rigdon 
remained an associate of the Prophet for some time, but he was 
never fully convinced of the efficacy of this kind of test for 
maidenly virtue, and their relations were thereafter somewhat 
strained. After the Prophet’s death, Brigham Young once said 
“that Joseph’s time on earth was short, and that the Lord allowed 
him privileges that we could not have.” 

There were other instances of attempts of the Prophet to ap- 
propriate the wives of his leading associates, if they were comely. 
It seemed impossible to satisfy the indomitable spirit of his youth 
and vigor, although he was now thirty-seven years old. The 
more wives he had the more he seemed to want. During his life- 

20 This letter is taken from Bennett’s Mormonism Exposed, pp. 243-244. It is 
also printed in part in the Mormon periodical, Millennial Star, vol. 19, p. 774, 


where it is included without any explanation, except the editor’s statement that 
the occasion for its composition is unknown. 


146 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


time, according to a Mormon estimate, the Prophet married at 
least twenty-eight women. The Historical Record, a carefully 
compiled official publication of the Church, gathered together the 
names of the known wives of Joseph Smith and published them 
in the issue of May, 1887, with this notation: “Summing up the 
information received from the parties already mentioned and 
from other sources, we find that the following named ladies, be- 
sides a few others, about whom we have been unable to get all 
the necessary information, were sealed to Prophet Joseph Smith 
during the last three years of his life.” Even the Mormons have 
been unable to compile a list of all their Prophet’s wives, but 
these are the names of twenty-eight of them, as nearly as pos- 
sible in chronological order: 


Emma Hale Smith Helen Mar Kimball Hannah Ells 

Louisa Beman Emily D. Partridge Flora Ann Woodworth 
Fanny Alger Eliza M. Partridge Ruth D. Vose 

Lucinda Harris Lucy Walker Mary Elizabeth Rollins 
Zina D. Huntington Almera W. Johnson Olive Frost 

Prescindia L. Huntington Malissa Lott Rhoda Richards 

Eliza Roxey Snow Fanny Young Sylvia Sessions 

Sarah Ann Whitney . Maria Lawrence Maria Winchester 
Desdemona W. Fullmer Sarah Lawrence Elvira A. Cowles 


Sarah M. Cleveland 


Occasionally a Saint found it difficult to persuade a sister that 
he must not marry her. There is one story, true or untrue, which 
is at least ingeniously pathetic, of “a rather interesting old maid, 
sister of one of the dignitaries of the church,” who traveled sixty 
miles to tell Brother Rushton that “‘she had a revelation that he 
was to be her husband ‘right now.’”’ Brother Rushton, how- 
ever, remained firm, and “she left him in tears, prostrate with 
disappointment.” 

There is another story involving the same Brother Rushton 
and the Prophet Joseph Smith. Emma Smith used to keep the 
keys to the Nauvoo House larder above her bed, and Brother 
Rushton, who opened the house daily, called for them every morn- 
ing. Emma Smith made a trip to St. Louis to buy supplies— 
the trip is mentioned in the Prophet’s official diary—and the first 
morning after her departure, Brother Rushton tapped at the door 
for his keys. When he opened the door to the command of a 
soft feminine voice, he was startled to find the young wife of 
Elder Edward Blossom in Emma’s bed. She handed him the 
keys, saying, “I suppose, Brother Rushton, I shall have to be 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 147 


Sister Emma to you this morning.” Joseph Smith, who was also 
lying in the bed, dressed in a gaudy red flannel nightgown, when 
he noticed the astonishment on Brother Rushton’s face, sat up 
and in a commanding, prophetic tone told Rushton that every- 
thing was as it should be, but that he must not mention what he 
had seen to any one.”’ ** 

It is interesting that there is no record of children by any of 
Joseph Smith’s wives, except his first wife Emma. The possible 
explanation of this is contained in the statement of Sarah M. 
Pratt, the wife of Orson Pratt, to Dr. Wyl that John C. Bennett, 
who, it will be remembered was a “professor of midwifery” be- 
fore he became a Mormon, frequently performed abortions at the 
earnest request of the Prophet. oP 

A significant factor in the career of the Prophet Joseph Smith 
is that the period of his greatest visionary fecundity was the 
period of his adolescence, and prior to his marriage to Emma 
Smith. After his first marriage he ceased to have visions, but 
he received a great many revelations from God which he wrote 
down. After his marriages began to multiply, he ceased to 
receive these, and the revelation on polygamy is the last he ever 
recorded publicly, although Brigham Young claimed later that 
the Prophet had many revelations which had never been pub- 
lished. Perhaps, occupied as he was with the intimate friendship 
of approximately twenty-eight women, he no longer had time for 
communion with God. Apparently, however, he still had time 
for dreams, for in his journal he set down several interpretations 
of dream symbols: “To dream of flying signifies prosperity and 
deliverance from enemies. To dream of swimming in deep water 
signifies success among many people, and that the word will be 
accompanied with power.” Dr. Sigmund Freud has attached a 
quite different’ significance to these same symbols. The few 
dreams which Joseph Smith recorded in his journal would in- 
terest psychoanalysts. On Wednesday, March 15, 1843, the 
Prophet wrote: “I dreamed last night that I was swimming in 
a river of pure water, clear as crystal, over a shoal of fish of the 
largest size I ever saw. They were directly under my belly. I 
was astonished, and felt afraid that they might drown me or do 


21 Mormon Portraits, by Dr. W. Wy]l, pp. 65-66. This book is a collection 
of all the stories of immorality Dr. Wyl, a meticulous German, could gather 
from the oldest inhabitants of Salt Lake City, in a residence there of several 
years undertaken exclusively for that purpose. 

22 Mormon Portraits, by Dr. W. Wyl, pp. 61-62. 


148 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


me injury.” On February 1, 1844, he had another dream in 
which he was swimming over huge waves in rough water and © 
eventually conquering.* 

Although polygamy was practised in 1843 by most FS the 
leaders of the Church and by many of the followers, it was neces- 
sary to keep the practice of it a secret and to deny its existence 
upon every occasion. This is perhaps one reason why there is no 
record of children by the Prophet’s many wives. The Prophet 
himself claimed that his wives were either adopted daughters or 
nieces. An English visitor, Edwin De Leon, wrote: “I even ven- 
tured, when I became familiar with ‘the Prophet,’ to comment on 
the curious variety among his nieces, and the want of any family 
resemblance among them. ‘There was a sly twinkle in the pro- 
phetic eye, as he poked me in the ribs with his forefinger, and 
rebuked me, exclaiming, ‘Oh, the carnal mind, the carnal mind!’ 
and I thought it discreet not to press the subject.” ** 

The Prophet even carried the deception into his journal, where 
he recorded on October 5, 1843, at which time he had about 
twenty-eight wives, that he gave instructions to bring to trial 
those persons “‘who were preaching, teaching, or practising the 
doctrine of plurality of wives.” But he was conscious that some 
day this journal would be published, and he did not know that 
some day the revelation on polygamy would also be published. 
In a sermon which he delivered to his assembled people, as they 
sat under the trees in the grove near the Temple site, within 
hearing and view of the rolling Mississippi River, Joseph urged, 
“Set our women to work, and stop their spinning yarns and talk- 
ing about spiritual wives.” In spite of, or perhaps because of, 
their faith in polygamy, the Mormons have never believed that 
woman’s place was in the home during the day. 

This secrecy concerning polygamy resulted in peculiar social 
conditions at Nauvoo. One Mormon recorded that a man never 
knew when he was speaking to a single woman. Brigham Young 
did not house his wives at the place where he and his legal wife 
lived. Whether this was for the purpose of avoiding publicity 
or conciliating his legal wife has not been revealed, but John D. 
Lee, who was a policeman in Nauvoo and as such bodyguard to 
the Prophet and to Brigham Young, wrote later: “Many a night 


23 History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 
Pei Years of My Life on Three Continents: by Edwin De Leon, vol. 1, 
p. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 149 


have I gone with him, arm in arm, and guarded him while he 
spent an hour or two with his young brides, then guarded him 
home and guarded his house until one o’clock, when I was re- 
lieved. He used to meet his beloved Emmeline at my house.” 
Beloved Emmeline was Emmeline Free, who was the favorite of 
Brigham Young’s early polygamous life. The necessity of visit- 
ing seven new wives secretly must have been both annoying and 
arduous for Brigham Young. 

In spite of all their efforts at secrecy, however, polygamy was 
too sensational to remain unsuspected, and the quarrels of those 
who practised it resulted in confirmation of the rumor that it 
‘existed. Men apostatized and told their tales of Nauvoo, so 
‘that the neighboring communities, and the neighboring news- 
papers especially, began to think of the city as a den of iniquity 
and a nest of sin. It was, of course, metaphorically referred 
to as a combination of Sodom and Gomorrah. Some, perhaps, 
thought that the city should go back to its old name, for when it 
was a village of a few huts, even before it was prosaically named 
Commerce, Nauvoo had been named the City of Venus. 

People outside the State of Illinois began to hear of what was 
going on in Nauvoo, Brigham Young wrote in his journal on 
June 9, 1843, of an argument he had with a southern professor 
whom he met on a Mississippi River steamboat : 


“He then asked me if Joseph Smith had more wives than one. I 
told him I would admit he had. In order to explain the principle, 
I asked the gentleman if he believed the Bible, and was a believer 
in the resurrection. He said he was a believer in the Old and New 
Testament and in the resurrection. 

“T then asked him if he believed parents and children, husbands 
and wives would recognize each other in the resurrection. He said 
he did. . . . I then said, ‘We see in this life, that amongst Chris- 
tians, ministers, and all classes of men, a man will marry a wife, 
and have children by her; she dies, and he marries another, and 
then another, until men have had as many as six wives, and each 
of them bear children. This is considered all right by the Christian 
world, inasmuch as.a man has but one at a time. 

“Now in the resurrection this man and all his wives and chil- 
dren are raised from the dead; what will be done with those women 
and children, and who will they belong to? And if the man is to 
have but one, which one in the lot shall he have?’ 

“The Professor replied, he never thought of the question in this 


150 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


light before, and said he did not believe those women and children 
would belong to any but those they belonged to in this life. 

“Very well,’ said I, ‘you consider that to be a pure, holy place 
in the presence of God, angels, and celestial beings; would the Lord 
permit a thing to exist in his presence in heaven which is evil? 
And if it is right for a man to have several wives and children in 
heaven at the same time, is it an inconsistent doctrine that a man 
should have several wives, and children by those wives at the same 
time, here in this life, as was the case with Abraham and many of 
the old Prophets? Or is it any more sinful to have several wives 
at a time than at different times” 

“He answered, ‘I cannot see that it would be any more incon- 
sistent to have more wives in this life than in the next, or to have 
five wives at one time than at five different times. I feel to acknowl- 
edge it is a correct principle and a Bible doctrine, and I cannot see 
anything inconsistent in it.’ ” 7° 


The Mormons have defended their secret practice of polygamy 
in Nauvoo by pointing to the advice of Jesus Christ, which he is 
said to have given to his disciples on several occasions: “Cast not 
your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet 
and turn again and rend you.” It was good advice, and had 
the Mormons been able to follow it indefinitely, they would have 
avoided considerable difficulty, for as soon as they did cast their 
pearl, polygamy, before the rest of the country, the attempt was 
made, as we shall see, to trample them under foot and turn upon 
them and rend them. It was natural, therefore, from their point 
of view, that the Mormons should have regarded the rest of the 
country as swine. 

Meanwhile, it was proving impossible to keep such a pearl as 
polygamy a secret, and, together with the economic and political 
reasons that have already been stated, it was a source of ominous 
opposition to the Mormons as a community in Illinois. 


V 


While the boy Joseph Smith was trying his best to avoid work 
on a farm for the rest of his days, he may have indulged in ambi- 
tious dreams, but by the year 1844 he had accomplished things 
more extraordinary and more fantastic than any boy could have 
imagined. By the time of his thirty-eighth birthday he was dic- 


25 Millennial Star, vol. 26, pp. 215-216, 


THE LAND OF EGYPT M51 


tator of more than ten thousand people, who listened to his advice 
on spiritual matters and took to him the problems of their every- 
day life; he was mayor of his city, with power to make into a 
law his wildest fancy; he was general in command of several 
thousand men, and his uniform was gaudy enough to satisfy the 
imagination of any boy who wished to be a soldier; and he was 
beloved by at least twenty-eight women, a consummation no 
boy in the United States had even dared to wish for. It was 
therefore only fitting that he should aspire to the alleged ambi- 
tion of every American boy: to become President of the United 
States. 

The exalted position to which he had attained did not cause 
Joseph Smith to become arrogant in his relations with his own 
people; he continued in Nauvoo to be the genial democrat, who 
won the affection of his followers by his lack of anything but 
spiritual pretension. He still wrestled good-naturedly with his 
friends and fought defensive and offensive fist fights with his 
enemies, when he was not too busy making known the will of 
the Lord. In his journal for Monday, March 13, 1843, we find: 
“T wrestled with William Wall, the most expert wrestler in 
Ramus, and threw him. In the afternoon, held a Church meet- 
ing.’ And a few days later: “Josiah Butterfield came to my 
house and insulted me so outrageously that I kicked him out of 
the house, across the yard, and into the street.” There are two 
stories illustrating how readily the Prophet could turn athlete 
before strangers and thus satisfy his pride in his physical prowess. 
He wanted very much to wrestle with a United States Army 
major who visited Nauvoo, and who was taller than the Prophet. 
Joseph threw off his coat and said, “I bet you five dollars that 
I will throw you, come on!’ The major declined, Joseph laughed 
and said: ‘““Now you see the benefit of one’s being a prophet; I 
knew you wouldn’t wrestle.’’ One of Joseph’s faithful followers 
who witnessed the scene was so shocked at the worldliness of his 
Prophet that he left the Church forthwith. Upon another oc- 
casion two clergymen visited the Prophet at Nauvoo and had an 
interview with him for the purpose of learning his theological 
views and principles. Joseph took them to his study, told them 
his ideas on repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and 
the other tenets of his church, all except polygamy. The two 
clergymen frequently interrupted with argumentative objections, 
and the Prophet soon became impatient. He suddenly rose to 


152 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


his full height of six feet two inches and said, “Gentlemen, I am 
not much of a theologian, but I bet you five dollars that I will 
throw you one after the other.” The clergymen fled, and the 
man who told the story said, “Joseph laughed himself nearly 
to death.” Whenever the Prophet was cornered in an argument, 
he resorted to the universally human trick of illogically settling 
it with his fists. 

There was one man, however, of whom the Prophet was afraid, 
and that was his brother William. Joseph and William disagreed 
frequently, and upon one occasion William knocked down his 
Prophet brother when the Prophet interfered with William’s at- 
tempt to set up a debating society. This occurred in Kirtland; 
after William threw the Prophet on the floor and beat him, 
Joseph went home and wrote his brother a letter in which he 
tried to explain the situation: 


“T undertook to reason with you, but you manifested an incon- 
siderate and stubborn spirit. I then despaired of benefiting you, on 
account of the spirit you manifested, which drew from me the ex- 
pression that you were as ugly as the devil. Father then commanded 
silence, and I formed a determination to obey his mandate, and was 
about to leave the house, with the impression that you was under 
the influence of a wicked spirit: you replied you would say what 
you pleased in your own house. Father said: ‘Say what you please, 
but let the rest hold their tongues.’ ... I said, ‘I will speak for I 
built the house, and it is as much mine as yours’; or something to 
that effect. I should have said, that I helped to finish the house.” ** 


There were other fights between the brothers, and William was 
cut off from the Church several times, but he was always re- 
admitted at the suggestion of the Prophet. William traveled in 
the eastern states and gathered money for the Temple, which he 
spent for the satisfaction of his own desires. ‘In all his mis- 
sions,’ wrote the historian of The Historical Record, “the course 
of conduct he pursued towards the females subjected him to much 
criticism.”’ His Prophet brother could do nothing with him, 
Among his followers Joseph Smith took great pains to be 
considered what so many Americans have desired to be consid- 
ered above all things, “‘a regular fellow.” In spring he played ball 
with his brethren, and he engaged in a contest at pulling sticks 
with Justus A. Morse, reputed to be the strongest man in the 


26 History of the Church, vol. 2, pp. 338-343. 


SS 2 a a 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 153 


country around Nauvoo. One of Joseph Smith’s Church biog- 
raphers reported proudly: “The Prophet used but one hand and 
easily defeated Morse.” Joseph Smith was no sackcloth and 
ashes Prophet, with long, gloomy beard and melancholy air. On 
the contrary, Governor Ford, of Illinois, who was close to him 
at the time we now see him, wrote of him that he “dressed like a 
dandy, and at times drank like a sailor and swore like a pirate.” *” 
In a sermon delivered at Nauvoo Joseph Smith once defined his 
attitude towards his position: 


“Many persons think a prophet must be a great deal better than 
anybody else. Suppose I would condescend—yes, I will call it con- 
descend—to be a great deal better than any of you, I would be raised 
up to the highest heavens, and who should I have to accompany me? 
I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm, yet 
deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to 
the poor, than the long, smooth-faced hypocrite. I do not want you 
to think I am very righteous, for I am not. God judges men ac- 
cording to the use they make of the light which He gives them.” 


In order to insure, perhaps, that he would never be in that posi- 
tion of awful, exclusive, aristocratic loneliness in Heaven, the 
Prophet frequently indulged in sprees on earth. A visiting Eng- 
lish clergyman once asked him how he, a Prophet of the Lord, 
could get drunk. Joseph replied that it was necessary for him 
to do so occasionally, so that his followers might not worship 
him as a god. Dr. Wyl was told many years later that the 
Prophet usually got drunk on parade days of the Nauvoo Legion, 
and that he once preached after he had recovered: ‘Brethren 
and sisters, ] got drunk last week and fell in the ditch. I sup- 
pose you have heard of it. I am awfully sorry, but I felt very 
good.”” Upon another occasion he said in the pulpit that he 
got drunk to show the elders who were in the habit of doing so, 
“how bad it looked.” There is something engaging about this 
Prophet, which his more godlike predecessors lack entirely. 
Sometimes the Prophet experienced all the anguish of the most 
miserable penitent, humbled himself in begging forgiveness for 
his sins, and endured the darkest forebodings of eternal woe. 
But melancholy moods did not last long. The cause was tri- 
umphing and confounding its enemies. Converts poured into 


27 History of Illinois, by Thomas Ford, p. 355. 
28 The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo, by Brigham H. Roberts, p. 212. 


154 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Nauvoo from England on every ship, and missionaries wrote 
letters detailing their divine victories in their skirmishes in behalf 
of God’s kingdom. ‘The Marquis of Downshire,”’ wrote a mis- 
sionary in England, “who had persecuted the Saints at Hills- 
borough, in Ireland, had the felicity of seeing his son, Lord 
William, killed by a fall from his horse while hunting; and Mr. 
Reilly, his agent, who had aided him in persecuting the Saints, 
had suffered a third attack of paralysis, while his son, who had 
headed an outbreak against our Church, has fallen ill without 
hope of recovery. So much for them.” The Prophet entertained 
the idea of a triumphal missionary tour of the world to be under- 
taken by him and his Twelve Apostles. “If I live,” he wrote in 
his journal on January 20, 1843, “I will yet take these brethren 
through the United States and through the world, and will make 
just as big a wake as God Almighty will let me. We must send 
kings and governors to Nauvoo, and we will do it.” 

The personal fame of the Prophet Joseph Smith had spread 
both by the antagonism he had excited and the curiosity he had 
awakened. In Nauvoo he was visited by mesmerisers, phrenolo- 
gists, clergymen, physiologists, prophets of minor sects, a Social- 
ist orator, traveling showmen, and politicians of all parties. They 
found a large, heavy man, nearing forty, but of youthful appear- 
ance, with light hair, fair complexion, and agile blue eyes set 
deep behind his high cheek bones. His head was large, and a 
phrenologist of the period who examined it reported that it indi- 
cated in a high degree “amativeness’”’ and ambition. When he 
spoke, his voice was loud and coarse, and his language was more 
impromptu than elegant. Parley P. Pratt wrote in his auto- 
biography that “there was something connected with the serene 
and steady penetrating glance of his eye, as if he would penetrate 
the deepest abyss of the human heart, gaze into eternity, pene- 
trate the heavens, and comprehend all worlds.” But then, Parley 


‘ P, Pratt was somewhat biased. 


One man who visited Joseph Smith at Nauvoo recorded that, 
“Tn his conversation he is uncommonly shrewd, and exhibits more 
knowledge of books, sacred and profane, than his personal ap- 
pearance at first seems to promise.” The Prophet was not above 
ludicrous attempts at erudition. James Arlington Bennet, a 
writer of arithmetic texts and miscellaneous books of all descrip- 
tions, wrote to Smith expressing his admiration, comparing him 
with Mohammed and with Moses, and placing him in a position 


OO a a 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 155 


greater than either because of the fact that he was present, and 
they were past. Mr. Bennet expressed his intention of settling 
in Nauvoo, and he hoped that the Prophet would support him for 
governor of Illinois if he finally decided to come out that way. 
Bennet had been baptized, not very seriously, in the waters near 
Coney Island by Brigham Young. Joseph Smith’s reply showed 
that he was discerning enough to sense false flattery, but not 
sufficiently so to avoid making himself ridiculous in the use of 
pretentious phrases. After disclaiming all personal credit for the 
virtues which Mr. Bennet mentioned and giving that credit to 
God, the Prophet wrote: 


“Were I an Egyptian, I would exclaim, Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on- 
dosh, Flo-ees, Flos-is-is; (O the earth! the power of attraction, and 
the moon passing between her and the sun). A Hebrew, Hauelo- 
heem yerau; a Greek, O theos phos esi; A Roman, Dominus regit 
me; a German, Gott gebe uns das licht; a Portuguese, Senhor Jesu 
Christo e liberdade; a Frenchman, Dieu defend le droit; but as I 
am, I give God the glory and say in the beautiful figure of the poet: 


“Could we with ink the ocean fill; 
Was the whole earth of parchment made; 
And ev’ry single stick a quill; 
And every man a scribe by trade; 
To write the love of God above, 
Would drain the ocean dry; 
Nor could the whole upon a scroll, 
Be spread from sky to sky.’” 


If we did not have other examples of Joseph Smith’s use of for- 
eign phrases in his letters, it might be possible to believe that the 
Prophet was pulling James Arlington Bennet’s leg. When Bennet 
wrote that he hoped to become the Prophet’s right-hand man, 
Joseph Smith answered shrewdly : “Why, Sir, Cesar had his right 
hand Brutus, who was his ‘left hand’ assassin, not however apply- 
ing the allusion to you.” Then he added this peroration: “I 
combat the errors of ages; I meet the violence of mobs; I cope 
with the illegal proceedings from executive authority; I cut the 
Gordian knot of powers and I solve mathematical problems of 
Universities, WITH TRUTH,—diamond truth, and God is my 
‘right hand man,” *° 


29 Correspondence Between Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and Col. John Went- 
worth, Editor of “The Chicago Democrat,’ and Member of Congress from 


156 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


The loss of so much property and money in Missouri still , 
troubled Joseph Smith, and now that he felt his own political 
and personal strength, he conceived the notion of writing to all 
the political candidates for the Presidency of the United States 
in the campaign of 1844 to ask their attitude towards the 
Mormons as a people; he informed them that he would be able 
to guarantee the votes of all his ten thousand followers to the 
candidate who promised to protect their rights. A few weeks later 
he addressed another memorial to Congress asking damages for 
the loss of property in Missouri. He also wrote, “An Appeal to 
the Freemen of the State of Vermont, The ‘Brave Green Moun- 
tain Boys,’ and Honest Men,” in which he asked the support 
of his native state in the effort to get justice from Missouri, and 
indulged his love of quotation to the inordinate extent of using 
phrases from seventeen foreign languages. After denouncing 
politicians as worse than publicans and sinners, he wrote: 


“Were I a Chaldean I would exclaim: Keed’nauh ta-meroon 
lehoam elauhayauh dey-ahemayaua veh aur’kau lau gnaubadoo, 
yabadoo ma-ar’gnau comeen tehoat sheamyauh allah. (Thus shall 
ye say unto them: The gods that have not made the heavens and 
the earth, they shall perish from the earth, and from these heavens. ) 

“An Egyptian, Su-e-eh-ni. (What other persons are those?) A 
Grecian, Diabolos bssileuei. (The Devil reigns.) A Frenchman, 
Messieurs sans Dieu. (Gentlemen without God.) A Turk, Ain 
shems. (The fountain of light.) A German, sie sind unferstandig! 
(What consummate ignorance!) A Syrian, Zaubok! (Sacrifice!) 
A Spaniard, Il sabio muda conscio, il nescio no. (A wise man 
reflects, a fool does not.) A Samaritan: Saunau! (O stranger!) 
An Italian: Oh tempa! oh diffidanza! (O the times! O the diffi- 
dence!) A Hebrew: Ahtauh ail rauey. (Thou God seest me.) A 
Dane: Hvad tidende! (What tidings!) A Saxon, Hwaet riht! 
(What right!) A Swede: Hvad skilia! (What skill!) A Po- 
lander: Nay-yen-shoo bah pon na Jesu Christus. (Blessed be the 
name of Jesus Christ.) A western Indian: She-mo-kah she-mo-keh 
teh ough-ne-gah. (The white man, O the white man, he very un- 
certain.) A Roman: Procul, O procul este profani! (Be off, be 
off ye profane!) But as I am I will only add; when the wicked 
rule the people mourn.” *° 


Illinois; Gen. James Arlington Bennet, of Arlington House, Long Island, and 
The Honorable John C. Calhoun, Senator from South Carolina. A pamphlet, 
New York, 1844. 

80 The Voice of Truth. A pamphlet containing some of the writings of 
Joseph Smith, Jr., pp. 16-17. The translations are Joseph Smith’s. 





THE LAND OF EGYPT 157 


To his letter asking for the views of candidates on the Mormon 
problem, Joseph Smith received what to him were very unsatis- 
factory replies from Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun; Lewis 
Cass, Richard M. Johnson and Martin Van Buren did not think 
it worth while to reply. Calhoun wrote that he could not offer 
the Mormons any more protection than he would endeavor to 
give everybody in the country, irrespective of creed, as required 
by the Constitution of the United States. “But as you refer to 
the case of Missouri,’ wrote Calhoun, “candor compels me to 
repeat what I said to you at Washington; that, according to my 
views the case does not come within the jurisdiction of the 
federal government, which is one of limited and specific powers.”’ 
Joseph Smith’s scathing reply read in part: 


“Nauvoo, Illinois, Jan. 2, 1844. 

“Sir,—Your reply to my letter of last November, concerning your 
rule of action towards the Latter Day Saints if elected President, is 
at hand . . . permit me, as a law abiding man, as a well wisher to 
the perpetuity of constitutional rights and liberty, and as a friend 
to the free worship of Almighty God, by all, according to the dic- 
tates of every person’s conscience, to say J am surprised that a man, 
or men, in the highest stations of public life, should have made up 
such a fragile ‘view’ of a case than which there is not one on the 
face of the globe fraught with so much consequence to the happi- 
ness of men in this world, or the world to come. ‘To be sure, the 
first paragraph of your letter appears very complacent and fair 
on a white sheet of paper; and who, that is ambitious for greatness 
and power, would not have said the same thing? Your oath would 
bind you to support the constitution and laws, and as all creeds and 
religions are alike tolerated, they must, of course, all be justified 
or condemned, according to merit or demerit—but why, tell me why, 
are all the principal men, held up for public stations, so cautiously 
careful, not to publish to the world, that they will judge a righteous 
judgment—law or no law: for laws and opinions, like the vanes of 
steeples, change with the wind. One congress passes a law, and 
another repeals it, and one statesman says that the constitution 
means this, and another that; and who does not know that all may 
be wrong. The opinion and pledge therefore, in the first paragraph 
of your reply to my question, like the forced steam from the engine 
of a steam-boat, makes the show of a bright cloud at first, but when 
it comes in contact with a purer atmosphere, dissolves to common 
air again. 

“Your second paragraph leaves you naked before yourself, like 
a likeness in a mirror when you say that ‘according to your view, the 


158 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


federal government is one of limited and specific powers,’ and has 
no jurisdiction in the case of the Mormons. So then, a State can at 
any time, expel any portion of her citizens with impunity, and in 
the language of Mr. Van Buren, frosted over with your gracious 
‘views of the case,’ though the cause is ever so just, government can 
do nothing for them, because it has no power. 

“Go on, then, Missouri, after another set of inhabitants, (as the 
Latter Day Saints did) have entered some two or three hundred 
thousand dollars worth of land, and made extensive improvements 
thereon; go on, then, I say, banish the occupants or owners, or kill 
them as the mobbers did many of the Latter Day Saints, and take 
their lands and property as a spoil; and let the legislature as in the 
case of the Mormons, appropriate a couple of hundred thousand 
dollars to pay the mob for doing the job; the renowned senator 
from South Carolina, Mr. J. C. Calhoun says the powers of the 
federal government are so specific and limited that it has no jurisdic- 
tion of the case? Oh, ye people who groan under the oppression 
of tyrants; ye exiled Poles, who have felt the iron hand of Russian 
grasp; ye poor and unfortunate among all nations, come to the 
‘asylum of the oppressed,’ buy ye lands of the general government ; 
pay in your money to the treasury, to strengthen the army and the 
navy ; worship God according to the dictates of your own consciences ; 
pay in your taxes to support the great heads of a glorious nation; 
but remember a ‘Sovereign State! is so much more powerful than 
the United States, the parent government, that it can exile you at 
pleasure, mob you with impunity; confiscate your lands and prop- 
erty; have the legislature sanction it; yea, even murder you, as an 
edict of an Emperor, and it does no wrong, for the noble Senator 
of South Carolina, says the power of the federal government is so 
limited and specific that it has no jurisdiction of the case! What 
think ye of imperium in imperio.... 

“Tf the general government has no power to reinstate expelled 
citizens to their rights, there is a monstrous hypocrite fed and 
fostered from the hard earnings of the people! A real ‘bull beggar’ 
upheld by sycophants; and although you may wink at the priests 
to stigmatize—wheedle the drunkards to swear, and raise the hue 
and cry of impostor false prophet, God damn old Joe Smith, yet, 
remember, if the Latter Day Saints are not restored to all their 
rights, and paid for all their losses, according to the known rules of 
justice and judgment, reciprocation and common honesty among 
men, that God will come out of his hiding place and vex this nation 
with a sore vexation—yea, the consuming wrath of an offended God 
shall smoke through the nation, with as much distress and woe, as 
independence has blazed through with pleasure and delight... . 
No! verily no! While I have powers of body and mind; while 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 159 


water runs and grass grows; while virtue is lovely and vice hateful ; 
and while a stone points out a sacred spot where a garment of 
American liberty once was; I or my posterity will plead the cause 
of injured innocence, until Missouri makes atonement for all her 
sins,—or sinks disgraced, degraded, and damned to hell—‘where the 
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.’ .. . 

“To close, I would admonish you, before you let your ‘candor 
compel’ you again to write upon a subject, great as the salvation of 
man, consequential as the life of the Saviour, broad as the prin- 
ciples of eternal truth, and valuable as the jewels of eternity, to read 
in the 8th section and Ist article of the Constitution of the United 
States, the first, fourteenth, and seventeenth ‘specific’ and not very 
‘limited powers’ of the federal government, what can be done ‘to 
protect the lives, property and rights of a virtuous people, when the 
administrators of the law, and law-makers, are unbought by bribes, 
uncorrupted by patronage, untempted by gold, unawed by fear, and 
uncontaminated by tangling alliances—even like Czesar’s wife, not 
only wnspotted but unsuspected! and God, who cooled the heat of 
a Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, or shut the mouths of lions for the 
honor of a Daniel, will raise your mind above the narrow notion, 
that the general government has no power—to the sublime idea that 
Congress, with the President, as executor, is as almighty in its 
sphere, as Jehovah is in his. With great respect, 

“TI have the honor to be, your obedient servant, 


| “JOSEPH SMITH. 
“Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, S. C.” 


This argument between Joseph Smith and John C, Calhoun 
was only another example of the great battle of the period, the 
contest between the principle of state sovereignty and the powers 
of the federal government. The conflict was only settled by a 
civil war, after which Joseph Smith’s view of the problem was 
triumphant. 

It is claimed by his followers that Joseph Smith predicted the 
Civil War almost thirty years before it broke out, when, on 
Christmas Day, 1832, he received this revelation from God: 


“Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars that will shortly 
come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which 
will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls. 

“And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all 
nations, beginning at this place; 

“For behold the Southern States shall be divided against the 
Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, 


160 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also | 


call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other 
nations ; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations. 

“And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up 
against their masters, who shall be marshalled and disciplined for 
war: 

“And it shall come to pass also, that the remnants who are left 
of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceeding 
angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation; 

“And thus, with the sword, and by bloodshed, the inhabitants of 
the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earth- 
quakes, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid light- 
ning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the 
wrath of the Almighty God, until the consumption decreed, hath 
made a full end of all nations; | 

“That the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall 
cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the 
earth, to be avenged of their enemies. 

‘Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the 
day of the Lord come; for behold it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. 
Amen.” 


The Mormons choose to regard this as a marvelous proof of 
the divine inspiration of their Prophet. He not only predicted 
the Civil War, they say, but he also foretold that it would begin 
in South Carolina. It is not so remarkable, however, when we 
realize that one month before Joseph Smith received this reve- 


lation, South Carolina, in November, 1832, had passed resolu- 


tions declaring the state free and independent of the federal 
government, and it looked for a time as if war would begin 
with that state before the year 1833. The Mormons also ig- 
nore the fact that God’s statements, through the Prophet, were 
not borne out by the facts. The Civil War was not followed by 
universal destruction, Great Britain and other nations of the 
earth did not join in the universal carnage and there were no fam- 
ines, plagues, or earthquakes to vex the inhabitants of the earth 
with the grievous anger of the Almighty. Perhaps these things 
are yet to come, along with the dire disasters of John of Patmos, 
still so anxiously awaited by thousands of the hopeful. Mean- 


while, the cries of the Saints continued for many years to go up © 
to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and He has not yet seen fit 


to avenge them upon their enemies. 
The Prophet saw many “portentous omens” during the eighteen- 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 161 


forties. He called attention to every one of them in the church 
weekly newspaper, Times and Seasons. There was, for instance, 
the strange calamity of the chandeliers in the Senate, “weighing 
about 1,500 lbs., said to have cost $5,000.’ They came tumbling 
down and were smashed to atoms. ‘‘Again,” recorded the 
Prophet, “‘it is said that the scroll held in the talons of the eagle, 
placed over the chair of the presiding officer of the Senate of 
the United States, and bearing upon it the motto of the Union, 
‘E pluribus unum,’ is stated to have fallen to the earth; and on 
the same day, the hand of the figure representing the goddess 
of liberty, standing in front of the Capitol of the United States, 
holding in it our glorious Constitution, broke off, and came 
tumbling down.” As if this were not enough, when the Presi- 
dent-elect, William Henry Harrison, started from his home to 
the national capital, an earthquake shook the earth; when he 
reached Baltimore, several banks failed; the cord holding the 
flags stretched from the White House to the Capitol snapped, 
bringing to the ground in ignominious disaster the flags of all 
the states that had voted for him. Simple disasters these were 
to some, but to Joseph Smith, something more. They were as- 
suredly signs of the eventual Coming of the Son of Man, now 
so long delayed. ‘That the explosion of the banks,” he wrote, 
“should have anything to do or part to act in this tragedy, no 
doubt would be thought strange; but what is better calculated to 
produce ‘a distress of nations with perplexity,’ than the monied 
power of the world? What is better calculated to make ‘men’s 
hearts fail them for fear,’ &c., than to leave them penniless? .. . 
consequently there is no doubt but banks will perform their part 
in the great theater of the world, to bring about the purpose of 
God, preparatory to the second advent of Christ.” 

Because of the unsatisfactory nature of the replies he received 
to his letters to Presidential candidates, Joseph Smith decided 
that there was only one thing to do; he owed it to his people and 
mankind to become a candidate for President of the United States 
himself. At a political meeting held in Nauvoo on January 29, 
1844, Joseph Smith was nominated for President of the United 
States, and Sidney Rigdon for Vice-President. The nomina- 
tions were ratified by a convention, also held in Nauvoo. Prepa- 
rations immediately began for an extensive campaign. Another 
weekly newspaper, the Nauvoo Neighbor, was established with 
the purpose avowed in its prospectus of electing Joseph Smith 


162 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


President. Elders were appointed to visit every state in the | 
Union during the spring of 1844 to urge Mormonism as their 
religion and Joseph Smith as their President of the United States. 
Brigham Young, at the head of the Twelve Apostles, left im- 
mediately for the eastern states to superintend this campaign. 
Three hundred and fifty men, with Brigham Young at their 
head, traveled throughout the country to spread propaganda for 
the independent religious candidate. At a political meeting in 
New York City in the spring of 1844 Parley P. Pratt delivered 
this campaign plea for his Prophet: 


“Who then shall we vote for as our next President? I answer, 
Gen. Joseph Smith of Nauvoo, Illinois. 

“He is not a Southern man with Northern principles; nor a 
Northern man with Southern principles. But he is an Independent 
man with American principles, and he has both knowledge and dis- 
position to govern for the benefit and protection of ALL. And what 
is more HE DARE DO IT, EVEN IN THIS AGE, and this can 
scarcely be said of many others. 


“Come then, O Americans! rally to the Standard of Liberty. 
And in your generous indignation trample down 
The Tyrant’s rod and the Oppressor’s crown, 
That yon proud eagle to its height may soar, 
And peace triumphant reign for-ever more.” 


Parley P. Pratt was always considered something of a poet by 
his fellow Mormons. There was another campaign verse by an 
anonymous Mormon poet which the Nauvoo Neighbor published: 


“Kinderhoos, Kass, Kalhoun, nor Klay 
Kan never surely win the day. 
But if you want to know who Kan, 
You’ll find in General Smith the man.” 


In another issue the Neighbor wrote this of its candidate: “A 
Washington could save America from utter destruction, and we 
have a greater than Washington now. Some will say no; but 
all we ask of those persons, is to become acquainted with General 
Smith for themselves, and we will risk the matter confidently.” 
The Times and Seasons urged its readers to vote for “Joseph 
Smith, the smartest man in the United States.”’ 

The Prophet wrote his own political platform and issued it in 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 163 


the form of a pamphlet known as Views of the Powers and Policy 
of the Government of the United States by General Joseph Smith, 
of Nauvoo, Illinois. His political program offered a miscel- 
laneous collection of unique panaceas for the cure of the woes 
of the United States. Among these were some things which no 
other candidate in the history of the Presidency had thought of. 
He urged for one thing the liberation of convicts from the peni- 
tentiaries, “blessing them as they go,” he wrote, “and saying to 
them in the name of the Lord, go thy way and sin no more.” 
He suggested that work on roads and public works would be 
more useful to society and to the prisoners than confinement in 
cells. “‘Amor vincit omnia,” he recalled, and added for the 
benefit of those who had not gone to school, ‘Love conquers all.” 
He also advocated that the number of congressmen should be re- 
duced and their pay reduced to “two dollars and their board per 
diem; (except Sundays,) that is more than the farmer gets, and 
he lives honestly.” “Curtail the office of government in pay, 
number, and power,” he warned, “for the Philistine lords have 
shorn our nation of its goodly locks in the lap of Delilah.”’ 
The Prophet’s proposed solution of the slave problem was the 
purchase of the slaves from their masters and the abolition of 
slavery after the year 1850. He hoped to pay for this by the 
revenue from public lands and by the money saved in the reduc- 
tion of congressmen’s salaries. He also advocated freedom from 
punishment for deserters from the army and the navy: “If a 
soldier or marine runs away, send him his wages, with this in- 
struction, that his country will never trust him again; he has for- 
feited is honor.’ “Oh! then, create confidence! restore free- 
dom! break down slavery! banish imprisonment for debt, and be 
in love, fellowship and peace with all the world! Remember that 
honesty is not subject to law: the law was made for transgressors: 
wherefore a Dutchman might exclaim: Fin ehrlicher name 1s 
besser als Reichthum (a good name is better than riches).” But 
the Prophet did not disdain riches entirely, for in the next sen- 
tence he called for the establishment of a national bank with 
branches throughout the country to safeguard the people’s money. 
The experience of the Mormons in Missouri led the Prophet to 
urge power for the federal government to send an army to sup- 
press mobs, and his own experience in courts led him to add im- 
mediately afterwards: “Like the good Samaritan, send every 
lawyer as soon as he repents and obeys the ordinances of heaven, 


164 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


to preach the gospel to the destitute, without purse or scrip, pour- 
ing in the oil and the wine; a learned priesthood is certainly more 
honorable than ‘an hireling clergy.” Oregon, Joseph Smith be- 
lieved, belonged to the United States and not to Great Britain, 
and he was in favor of its annexation after the Indians had given 
their consent; he also advocated the annexation of California, 
Texas, Canada, and Mexico, if they should desire to join the 
United States. In addition he declared himself the patron of 
“liberty, free trade, and sailors’ rights,” and signed himself the 
friend of the people and of “unadulterated freedom.” 

Some Mormon historians have contended that Joseph Smith 
never seriously believed that his candidacy would be successful. 
That he had doubts of his success in 1844 is likely, but that he 
also had serious hopes that he might at some time become Presi- 
dent of the United States is undeniable. He had been too suc- 
cessful thus far to believe anything to be impossible. Had he 
not been a farm boy with nothing in abundance but visions? 
Had he not established three separate communities in three dif- 
ferent states, over which he ruled as benevolent despot by the 
grace of God? And had not those communities, which had been 
undeveloped before his arrival, prospered sufficiently to support 
him and twenty-eight wives, besides more than ten thousand 
followers? He was exciting the interest of every community in 
the United States and many in the British Isles by the promises 
and threats of his new religion. He was general of his own 
army, mayor of his own city, courted by politicians, and ques- 
tioned by statesmen. Why should he think it impossible that he 
might become President of the United States? He had met 
Presidents of the United States and found them contemptible 
politicians with whom he would not deign to compare himself. 
Between Martin Van Buren, courting the votes of Missouri, and 
Joseph Smith, inviting the favor of God, there was a gulf which 
Joseph Smith felt to be impassable—for Martin Van Buren, In- 
cidentally, his candidacy, he felt, could do no harm, for the spread 
of Mormonism always depended upon the power of advertising, 
and the electioneering Apostles were also, it must be remembered, 
missionaries of God. 

It was unwise, however, of Joseph Smith to set himself up 
as a candidate for President, for he thus brought into national 
focus the existence of a close-knit church-state organization 
within the United States, and the combination of church and state 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 165 


has always been repugnant even to pious Americans, ever since 
the long and sad experience of it which the early Puritan colonists 
endured. The fact that the leader of Mormonism dared to aspire 
to the Presidency of the nation caused thousands of Americans 
to fear this strange new power as a menace, whereas they had 
previously dismissed it as merely an entertaining fraud. And it 
was not unthinkable to thoughtful people that Joseph Smith, 
Prophet of God, might be elected President of the United States. 
Had not the people just passed through an emotional political 
experience in the course of which a log cabin and a keg of cider 
had elected William Henry Harrison and John Tyler President 
and Vice-President, respectively? But, unfortunately, Joseph 
Smith was unable to finish his political campaign. With an over- 
whelming rapidity events overtook him which obscured completely 
all political ambitions. 


VI 


The opposition to the Mormons in Illinois suddenly crystallized 
into violent antagonism to the Prophet Joseph Smith, which he 
helped to stimulate by his actions, and which he could no longer 
control by his powers. Joseph Smith was feeling fine. In addi- 
tion to the satisfaction to his vanity of the notoriety accorded his 
self-constituted candidacy for President of the United States, 
he had just succeeded in establishing beyond a shadow of .doubt 
in his own mind that he was a direct descendant of the Joseph, 
son of Jacob, who had proved so useful to Pharaoh, of Egypt. 
His wife, Emma, the Prophet was sure, came from a family of 
equal age and distinction. He made no attempt to establish the 
ancient lineage of the other twenty-seven odd, for they were still 
secrets. 

But when Smith coveted the wife of William Law, one of 
his faithful followers, the trouble began. William Law was 
described by Governor Ford, of Illinois, as “a deluded but con- 
scientious and candid man.” And Mrs. Law admired chastity. 
The Laws and their few friends rebelled from the rule of the 
Prophet, whom they now considered lascivious as well as false, 
and formed an opposition group, whose intention it was to ex- 
pose him. For that purpose they established at Nauvoo a weekly 
newspaper known as the Nauvoo Expositor. 

The first and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor was pub- 


166 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


lished on June 7, 1844, with the slogan at its mast-head: “The 
Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But the Truth.” For- 
tunately a few copies of this extremely rare document exist in 
libraries, for Joseph Smith in the capacity of Mayor of Nauvoo 
suppressed the paper a few days after publication of its first 
number and burned as many copies as his sheriffs could discover. 

The Nauvoo Expositor published in its one issue a Preamble 
in which the complaints of the schismatics were fully expressed. 
They declared themselves believers in the divine origin of the 
Mormon religion and the Book of Mormon, but they had this to 
say of the departures from righteousness of its author and pro- 
prietor: 


“We most solemnly and sincerely declare, God this day being 
witness of the truth and sincerity of our designs and statements, 
that happy will it be with those who examine and scan Joseph 
Smith’s pretensions to righteousness; and take counsel of human 
affairs, and of the experience of times gone by. Do not yield up 
tranquilly a superiority to that man which the reasonableness of 
past events, and the laws of our country declare to be pernicious 
and diabolical. We hope many items of doctrine, as now taught, 
some of which, however, are taught secretly, and denied openly, 
(which we know positively is the case,) and others publicly, con- 
siderate men will treat with contempt; for we declare them heretical 
and damnable in their influence, though they find many devotees. 
How shall he, who has drank of the poisonous draft, teach virtue? 
In the stead thereof when the criminal ought to plead guilty to the 
court, the court is obliged to plead guilty to the criminal. We appeal 
to humanity and ask, what shall we do? Shall we lie supinely and 
suffer ourselves to be metamorphosed into beasts by the Syren 
tongue? We answer that our country and our God require that we 
should rectify the tree. We have called upon him to repent, and 
as soon as he shewed fruits meet for repentance, we stood ready 
to seize him by the hand of fellowship, and throw around him the 
mantle of protection; for it is the salvation of souls we desire, 
and not our own aggrandizement. 

“We are earnestly seeking to explode the vicious principles of 
Joseph Smith, and those who practice the same abominations and 
whoredoms; which we verily know are not accordant and consonant 
with the principles of Jesus Christ and the Apostles; and for that 
purpose, and with that end in view, with an eye single to the 
glory of God, we have dared to gird on the armor, and with God 
at our head, we most solemnly and sincerely declare that the sword 
of truth shall not depart from the thigh, nor the buckler from the 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 167 


arm, until we can enjoy those glorious privileges which nature’s 
God and our country’s laws have guaranteed to us—freedom of 
speech, the liberty of the press, and the right to worship God as 
seemeth us good .. . though our lives be the forfeiture . . . ; but 
our petitions were treated with contempt; and in many cases the 
petitioner spurned from their presence, and particularly by Joseph, 
who would state that if he had sinned, and was guilty of the charges 
we would charge him with, he would not make acknowledgment, but 
would rather be damned; for it would detract from his dignity, 
and would consequently ruin and prove the overthrow of the Church. 
We would ask him on the other hand, if the overthrow of the 
Church was not inevitable, to which he often replied, that we would 
all go to Hell together, and convert it into a heaven, by casting the 
Devil out; and says he, Hell is by no means the place this world 
of fools suppose it to be, but on the contrary, it is quite an agree- 
able place: to which we ‘would now reply, he can enjoy it if he is 
determined not to desist from his evil ways; but as for us, and 
ours, we will serve the Lord our God! 

“Tt is absurd for men to assert that all is well, while wicked and 
corrupt men are seeking our destruction, by a perversion of sacred 
things; for all is not well, while whoredoms and all manner of 
abominations are practiced under the cloak of religion. Lo! the 
wolf is in the fold, arrayed in sheep’s clothing, and is spreading 
death and devastation among the saints: and we say to the watch- 
man standing upon the walls, cry aloud and spare not, for the day 
of the Lord is at hand—a day cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, 
to lay the land desolate. 

“Tt is a notorious fact, that many females in foreign climes, and 
in countries to us unknown, even in the most distant regions of the 
Eastern hemisphere, have been induced, by the sound of the gospel, 
to forsake friends, and embark upon a voyage across waters that lie 
stretched over the greater portion of the globe, as they supposed, to 
glorify God, that they might thereby stand acquitted in the great day 
of God Almighty. But what is taught them on their arrival at this 
place? They are visited by some of the Strikers, for we know not 
what else to call them, and are requested to hold on and be faith- 
ful, for there are great blessings awaiting the righteous; and that 
God has great mysteries in store for those who love the Lord, and 
cling to brother Joseph. They are also notified that brother Joseph 
will see them soon, and reveal the mysteries of heaven to their 
full understanding, which seldom fails to inspire them with new. 
confidence in the Prophet, as well as a great anxiety to know what 
God has laid up in store for them, in return for the great sacrifice 
of father and mother, of gold and silver, which they gladly left far 
behind, that they might be gathered into the fold, and numbered 


168 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


among the chosen of God.—They are visited again, and what is the 
result? They are requested to meet brother Joseph, or some of the 
Twelve, at some isolated point, or at some particularly described 
place on the bank of the Mississippi, or at some room, which wears 
upon its front—Positively No Admittance. The harmless, inof- 
fensive, and unsuspecting creatures, are so devoted to the Prophet, 
and the cause of Jesus Christ, that they do not dream of the deep 
laid and fatal scheme which prostrates happiness, and renders death 
itself desirable ; but they meet him, expecting to receive through him 
a blessing, and learn the will of the Lord concerning them, and what 
awaits the faithful follower of Joseph, the Apostle and Prophet of 
God, when in the stead thereof, they are told, after having been 
sworn in one of the most solemn manners, to never divulge what 
is revealed to them, with a penalty of death attached, that God 
Almighty has revealed it to him, that she should be his (Joseph’s) 
Spiritual wife; for it was right anciently, and God will tolerate it 
again: but we must keep those pleasures and blessings from the 
world, for until there is a change in the government, we will en- 
danger ourselves by practicing it—but we can enjoy the blessings 
of Jacob, David, and others, as well as to be deprived of them, if 
we do not expose ourselves to the law of the land. She is thunder- 
struck, faints, recovers, and refuses. The Prophet damns her if she 
rejects. She thinks of the great sacrifice, and of the many thou- 
sand miles she has traveled over sea and land, that she might save . 
her soul from pending ruin, and replies, God’s will be done, and 
not mine. The Prophet and his devotees in this way are gratified. 
The next step to avoid public exposition from the common course 
of things, they are sent away for a time, until all is well; after which 
they return, as from a long visit. Those whom no power or in- 
fluence could seduce, except that which is wielded by some indi- 
vidual feigning to be a God, must realize the remarks of an able 
writer, when he says, ‘if woman’s feelings are turned to ministers 
of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? Her lot is to be 
wooed and won; her heart is like some fortress that has been cap- 
tured, sacked, abandoned and left desolate. With her, the desire 
of the heart has failed—the great charm of existence is at an end; 
she neglects all the cheerful exercises of life, which gladden spirits, 
quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in healthful currents 
through the veins. Her rest is broken. The sweet refreshment of 
sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams; dry sorrow drinks her 
blood, until her enfeebled frame sinks under the slightest external 
injury. Look for her after a little while, and you find friendship 
weeping over her untimely grave; and wondering that one who so 
recently glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty, should 
so speedily be brought down to darkness and despair, you will be 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 169 


told of some wintry chill, of some casual indisposition that laid her 
low! But no one knows of the mental malady that previously 
sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler. 
She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove— 
graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying 
at its heart; we find it withered when it should be most luxuriant. 
We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf 
by leaf, until wasted and perished away, it falls in the stillness of the 
forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain 
to recollect the blast or thunder-bolt that could have smitten it with 
decay. But no one knows the cause except the foul fiend who per- 
petrated the diabolical deed. 

“Our hearts have mourned and bled at the wretched and tniser- 
able condition of females in this place; many orphans have been the 
victims of misery and wretchedness through the influence that has 
been exerted over them, under the cloak of religion, and afterwards, 
in consequence of that jealous disposition which predominates over 
the minds of some have been turned upon a wide world, fatherless 
and motherless, destitute of friends and fortune; and robbed of that 
which nothing but death can restore. ... It is difficult—perhaps 
impossible—to describe the wretchedness of females in this place, 
without wounding the feelings of the benevolent, or shocking the 
delicacy of the refined ; but the truth shall come to the world. . . .” * 


After this impassioned plea for the rights of outraged maiden- 
hood, any other argument sounds like an anti-climax, but the 
Expositor went on for columns to protest against Joseph Smith’s 
political ambitions, declaring them to be not at all seemly, since 
the Saviour had never mixed in politics. The Expositor then de= 
nounced as unjust various excommunications, and especially those 
of the editors and owners of the Expositor. Fifteen resolutions 
were passed, denouncing Joseph Smith, the doctrines of plural 
wives and plural gods, which they also claimed to be part of the 
neo-Mormon heresy, and the union of church and state. Two of 
the resolutions protested against Joseph Smith’s financial activi- 
ties and land speculations, and particularly accused him of using 
for his personal needs the funds collected by the missionaries for. 
building the Temple. “ 

These accusations, though the tone of their presentation was 
highly inflated, were largely true, and Joseph Smith knew them 


81 Nauvoo Expositor, p. 1, column 5; p, 2, columns 1, 2, 3, and 4. A copy of 
this rare newspaper of one issue is in the Berrian Collection on Mormonism of 
the New York Public Library. 


170 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


to be so. A few days after the Expositor appeared on the streets 
of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith called a meeting of the municipal 
council of Nauvoo. Evidence was offered that the Nauvoo Ex- 
positor was libelous and a public nuisance. The councilors testi- 
fied to each other that the proprietors of the paper were “sinners, 
whoremasters, thieves, swindlers, counterfeiters, and robbers.”’ 
Thomas Ford, then Governor of Illinois, who was watching the 
reports of the controversy with intense interest, wrote later in 
his History of Illinois: “It was altogether the most curious and 
irregular trial that ever was recorded in any civilized country; 
and one finds difficulty in determining whether the proceedings of 
the council were more the result of insanity or depravity.” Coun- 
cilor Hyrum Smith declared it his honest opinion that the best 
course was to smash the presses and pi the type of the offensive 
paper. The minutes of the hearing read that the following reso- 
lution was passed “unanimously, with the exception of Councilor 
Warrington” : 


“Resolved by the City Council of the City of Nauvoo, that the 
printing office from whence issues the ‘Nauvoo Expositor’ is a 
public nuisance, and also all of said Nauvoo Expositors, which may 
be, or exist in said establishment, and the Mayor is instructed to 
cause said printing establishment and papers to be removed with- 
out delay, in such manner as he shall direct. Passed June toth, 1844. 

“Gro. W. Harris, 
“Prest. pro. tem.” 


Then Joseph Smith changed his coat and, as Mayor of Nauvoo, 
immediately issued the following order: 


“State of Illinois, {To the Marshal of said city, 
City of Nauvoo, GREETING. 


“You are hereby commanded to destroy the printing press from 
whence issues the “Nauvoo Expositor’ and pi the type of said print- 
ing establishment in the street, and burn all the Expositors and 
libelous handbills found in said establishment, and if resistance be 
offered to your execution of this order, by the owners or others, 
demolish the house, and if anyone threatens you, or the Mayor, or 
the officers of the city, arrest those who threaten you, and fail not 
to execute this order without delay, and make due return thereon. 

“By order of the City Council. 

“JosEPH SMITH, Mayor.” 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 171 


The Marshal returned this brief report: “The within named press 
and type is destroyed and pied according to order on this roth 
day of June, 1844, at about 8 o'clock p.m. J. P. Green, C.M.” 
Meanwhile, Joseph Smith had changed his coat again, and, as 
lieutenant-general commanding the Nauvoo Legion, he issued 
this order to his major-general: 


Nauvoo Legion, 
June 10, 1844. 

“To Jonathan Dunham, acting Major General of the Nauvoo 
Legion. 

You are hereby commanded to hold the Nauvoo Legion in readi- 
ness forthwith to execute the city ordinances, and especially to re- 
move the printing establishment of the Nauvoo Expositor, and this 
you are required to do at sight, under the penalty of the laws; pro- 
vided the Marshal shall require it, and need your services. 

“JOSEPH SMITH, 
“Lieut. General Nauvoo Legion.” 


“HEAD QUARTERS. 


Besides these assaults on the newspaper, the city councilors 
took testimony tending to defame the characters of its owners. 
Hyrum Smith swore that William Law had confessed to him that 
he had been guilty of adultery, “was not fit to live,’ and “had 
sinned against his own soul.” Hyrum Smith also inquired 
rhetorically: “Who was Judge Emmons? When he came here 
he had scarce two shirts to his back, but he had been dandled 
by the authorities of the city, &c., and was now editor of the 
Nauvoo Expositor, and his right hand man Francis M. Higbee, 
who had confessed to him [Hyrum Smith] that he had had the 
P * *,.” as the Nauvoo Neighbor modestly put it. 

That fine spring day, June 10, 1844, was the busiest and, in 
its ultimate effects, the most disastrous of Joseph Smith’s life. 
The entire country surrounding Nauvoo was aroused to mob 
fury by his arbitrary acts of suppression and by his violent means 
of executing them. The press and materials of the Nauvoo Ex- 
positor had been tumbled into the street, smashed with sledge 
hammers, and then set on fire. The Prophet himself is said to 
have led the attack on Higbee’s grocery store, where the press 
was housed, and when a large man, hired by Higbee for his pro- 


82 These documents are reprinted from the June 19, 1844, issue of the Nauvoo 
Neighbor, the Mormon weekly newspaper. 


172 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


tection, knocked down three of Smith’s followers, the Prophet 
sent the protector sprawling with a hard punch under the ear, 
“saying that he could not see his men knocked down while in 
the line of duty, without protecting them.” 

While all this stirring action was taking place, Brigham Young 
was busy in New York and nearby states urging the election of 
his Prophet as President of the United States. He was ignorant 
of everything that was taking place in Nauvoo, for the electric 
telegraph was still an experiment. Had he been present in 
Nauvoo, he might have influenced the Prophet towards modera- 
tion, for, as we shall see, Brigham Young understood mobs and 
governments, and he knew when to compromise. Hyrum Smith 
had written a letter to Brigham Young on June 17, 1844, in 
which he told him of the activities of the mob and urged him to 
return to Nauvoo with as many of the brethren as he could gather 
as soon as possible. The letter read in part: 


“Tt is thought best by myself and others for you to return without 
delay, and the rest of the Twelve, and all the Elders that have gone 
out from this place, and as many more good, faithful men as feel 
disposed to come up with them. Let wisdom be exercised; and what- 
ever they do, do it without a noise. You know we are not fright- 
ened, but think it best to be well prepared and be ready for the 
onset; and if it is extermination, extermination it is, of course. 

“Communicate to the others of the Twelve with as much speed 
as possible, with perfect stillness and calmness. A word to the wise 
is sufficient; and a little powder, lead, and a good rifle can be packed 
in your luggage very easy without creating any suspicion.” *° 


Joseph Smith wrote in his journal that he advised Hyrum not 
to mail that letter immediately. Three days later Joseph wrote 
a letter to Brigham Young and addressed it to Boston, asking 
him and the rest of the Twelve Apostles to return to Nauvoo 
immediately. However, the mails were slow in those days, and 
Brigham Young was traveling. Meanwhile, events moved 
rapidly. 

After the forcible suppression of their newspaper, William 
Law and his associates left Nauvoo for the neighboring city of 
Carthage, which was composed largely of anti-Mormon people. 
They swore out a warrant for the arrest of Joseph Smith and 
his Nauvoo Common Council. Joseph Smith’s municipal court, 


83 History of the Church, vol. 6, pp. 486-487. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 173 


with powers under the extraordinary Nauvoo charter, promptly 
released the Prophet and his associates by a writ of habeas 
corpus. This use of the charter whipped the mob into a fury. 
The Carthage leaders contended that if the Nauvoo charter 
allowed suppression of newspapers and an independent military 
organization to carry it out, those who were against such arbi- 
trary powers were forced to use any means to overcome the ad- 
vantages obtained when the charter was jammed through the 
Illinois legislature by politicians with purely personal interests. 
First the Carthage people asked Governor Ford for the militia. 
Ford visited Carthage, and when he arrived there on June 21 he 
found an armed force of citizens ready to arrest Smith and his 
common councilors. There was also a rumor that the Prophet 
intended to suppress the Warsaw Signal, the county newspaper, 
which was attacking Smith vigorously. The Prophet had taken 
offense at a mild editorial in the Signal, which had argued that no 
one wished to deny the Mormons freedom of worship, but that 
they were not entitled to political supremacy over their neighbors. 
Under the heading, “HIGHLY IMPORTANT!!! A NEW 
REVELATION from JOE SMITH, the Mormon Prophet, for 
the especial benefit of the Editor of the ‘Warsaw Signal,’” the 
Warsaw newspaper published this letter from Smith in answer 
to its editorial: 


“Nauvoo, Ill., May 26, 1841. 
“Mr. Sharp, Editor of the Warsaw Signal: 

“Sir—You will discontinue my paper—its contents are calculated 
to pollute me, and to patronize the filthy sheet—that tissue of lies— 
that sink of iniquity—is disgraceful to any moral man. 

“Yours, with utter contempt, 
“JOSEPH SMITH. 
“P.S. Please publish the above in your contemptible paper. 
a ke 


S.% 


The Signal commented: “Now, as one good turn deserves an- 
other, we annex below, for the benefit of the aforesaid Prophet, 
a revelation from our books, in this wise: 


“Warsaw, IIl., June 2, 1841. 
“JosEPH SmiTH, Prophet, &c. &c., 
“To SHARP AND GAMBLE, Dr. 
“To one year’s subscription to ‘Western World,’ $3.00. 
“Come Josey, fork over, and for mercy’s sake don’t get a reve- 


174 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


lation that it is not to be paid. For if thou dost we will send a 
prophet after thee mightier than thou.” 


During the three years between this exchange of sentiments and 
the suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor Joseph Smith and the 
Warsaw Signal had reviled each other. 

Underlying the popular antagonism against the Mormons, and 
fomenting it, was the resentment of those leaders in the com- 
munity who had felt the political menace of Mormon solidarity. 
‘Those politicians who could not obtain the powerful Mormon 
solid vote, or who felt they were above asking for it, were par- 
ticularly anxious to destroy its controlling influence. Public 
meetings, with inflammatory speeches, were held in and around 
Carthage, and exaggerated rumors were spread about degenerate 
practices of the Mormons. Parodying these rumors, a Mormon 
writer once wrote: “It is an error, the prevalent opinion that we 
all cleanse the nasal orifice with the big toe, and make tea with 
holy water.’’ Almost overnight, committees arose whose mem- 
bers rode day and night throughout the neighboring countryside, 
spreading the news of latest Mormon outrages, and soliciting the 
aid of the adjoining counties in the campaign against this strange 
and offensive people. Any who were courageous enough to defend 
the Mormons against some of the ridiculous charges were known 
as “‘Jack’’ Mormons, and they occupied the same uncomfortable 
position as the Tories during the War of the Revolution. 

Illinois was still a pioneer state in 1844, and Hancock County 
was only fourteen years old. Governor Ford, who was intimately 
acquainted with the inhabitants of Illinois for many years, wrote 
that, ‘““with some honorable exceptions,” they “were, in popular 
language, hard cases.” ‘The people had been accustomed to take 
the law into their own hands when they did not feel that it was 
playing into them. Seven years before this difficulty with the 
Mormons, the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy had come to Alton, Illinois, 
to edit a religious newspaper, with an anti-slavery bias. He was 
allowed to edit a religious newspaper, but as soon as he expressed 
his sentiments concerning slavery, his press and types were thrown 
into the Mississippi River. He ordered another press and more 
types and defended them with Abolitionists, armed with rifles. 
The mob attacked the building, and a shot was fired which killed 
a boy in the mob. The building with the press was promptly 
burned, and the Rev. Mr. Lovejoy and all his Abolitionists were 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 175 


shot dead. In addition to this lively method of expressing dif- 
ferences of opinion, horse-stealing, murder, counterfeiting, and 
robbery were common throughout Illinois, according to Governor 
Ford. Citizens were in the habit of banding together for protec- 
tion, because they could not get it from intimidated or dishonest 
juries; there were also insufficient jails, and illegal changes of 
venue or eternal legal delays were frequently resorted to in the 
courts. The last resort in any controversy had been the calling 
of the militia, which usually was a vehement partisan of one side 
or the other, In the case of the Mormons professional jealousy, 
in addition to the other reasons, was sufficient to turn the soldiers 
against a people who had their own private militia. 

Governor Ford addressed a meeting of mob and militia at 
Carthage, and assured them that Joseph Smith would be made 
to answer charges for the suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor, 
but he also insisted that no personal harm must come to him until 
the law had authorized it, and he sent Smith notice to appear at 
Carthage to answer the charges made against him. Meanwhile, 
the Prophet had called out the Nauvoo Legion, declared Nauvoo 
to be under martial law, and no one was allowed to enter or to 
leave the city without strict search. 

The Prophet had made all plans for flight to the Rocky Moun- 
- tains, and he and his brother Hyrum, with several close friends, 
crossed the Mississippi River to Montrose, Iowa, and went into 
hiding. One of the Prophet’s bodyguard, Orrin Porter Rock- 
well, was sent back to Nauvoo to inform their families of the 
plans for flight. At one o’clock in the morning Emma Smith 
sent Rockwell and Reynolds Cahoon with a letter to her hus- 
band. A copy of this letter does not exist, but there is reason 
to believe that Emma urged in vigorous terms that the Prophet 
return immediately to Nauvoo to protect his family and his 
people instead of abandoning them to the fury of a disappointed 
mob, The messengers found Joseph, Hyrum, and Willard Rich- 
ards seated in the room of a farmhouse, which was filled with 
flour and other provisions, ready for packing. They delivered 
their letters and reported that some of the brethren in Nauvoo 
were openly accusing the Prophet and his brother of cowardice. 
“Like the fable, when the wolves came the shepherds ran from 
the flock, and left the sheep to be devoured,” was the way one 
of the Prophet’s followers frankly put the situation. To which 
Joseph wearily replied, “If my life is of no value to my friends, 


176 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


it is of none to myself.” Then he asked the advice of those 
who were in the room filled with flour and provisions, ready for 
packing. “Brother Hyrum,” said Joseph, “you are the oldest, 
what shall we do?” “Let us go back and give ourselves up, and 
see the thing out,” suggested Hyrum. Joseph was silent for a 
few minutes; this advice did not seem to satisfy him. He was 
disappointed, but he finally said, “If you go back, I will go with 
you, but we shall be butchered.’”’ Hyrum replied: “No, no; let 
us go back and put our trust in God, and we shall not be harmed. 
The Lord is in it. If we live or have to die, we will be reconciled 
to our fate.” But, at the moment, the Prophet Joseph Smith was 
not thinking of the Lord. The flour and provisions were ready. 
The Maid of Iowa, the little river steamer which the Church 
owned, was waiting with steam up to take him down the Missis- 
sippi River to safety. Reluctantly, he consented to recross the 
river to Nauvoo. On the way back he was sullen and discon- 
tented. He lagged behind the others, with Orrin Porter Rock- 
well, his trusted bodyguard, and when he was urged to hurry, 
he answered, “It is no use to hurry, for we are going back to 
be slaughtered.” ** 

On Monday, June 24, 1844, Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, 
and all the members of the Municipal Common Council of 
Nauvoo went to Carthage to surrender themselves on charges of 
riot. All except Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were dis- 
charged on bail, but the two leaders were held in jail on a charge 
of treason, because Smith had declared Nauvoo under martial 
law, which, the charge said, amounted to a declaration of war 
against the State of Illinois. 

The State of [llinois was out of joint, and it surely was cursed 
spite that ever Thomas Ford was born to set it right. He was a 
small, timid man, with a sharp nose, bent slightly to one side. 
His manner was “plain and unpretending,” according to one of 
his contemporaries, and he was a very poor orator. His small, 
squeaky, unimpassioned voice came from a frail, unimposing 
body. He had a clear, logical mind, which knew the law and 
realized how it should be applied, but the physical application of 
it in a pioneer state of civilization was beyond his personality. 
Ford, like another Illinois lawyer, Lincoln, was not particularly 
interested in the details of religion, and he was of the opinion 


84 History of the Church, vol. 6. Succession in the Presidency, by B. H. 
Roberts, pp. 116-117. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 177 


that any religious sect ought to be allowed to live, if its members 
desired religious life. It was entirely due to the interest in him 
and faith in him of his more worldly half-brother, George For- 
quer, that Ford had been elected a judge of the Supreme Court 
of Illinois. He was finally selected as a compromise candi- 
date for Governor of Illinois in 1842. Ford’s contemporaries 
said that in order to fortify his feeble courage, he used whiskey 
in large doses. After his retirement from the office of Governor, 
Ford went to a farm in Hamburgh, Illinois, where, his health 
wrecked, and a financial bankrupt, he wrote his History of Illi- 
nois, which is far superior to most of the histories of our states 
because of its liberal attitude of mind and its careful literary 
workmanship. For a few years after he finished the history, 
Ford and his wife, both afflicted with incurable diseases, lived as 
objects of public charity. Many years later a monument to 
Thomas Ford was erected at Peoria, Illinois. 

Governor Ford had promised Joseph Smith and his brother 
that he would give them protection from the mob, and he had 
persistently refused to call the state militia to Carthage to aid 
that mob. The militia used to guard the prisoners was a local 
Carthage body, known as the Carthage Greys. Joseph Smith had 
confidence in Governor Ford, but the Governor was not equally 
appreciated by the anti-Mormons, who did not find him firm 
enough for their purposes. The women of Hancock County 
formed a committee and waited upon the Governor. They pre- 
sented him with a package, which the nervous little man opened 
before them with embarrassed suspense. He expected no doubt 
a token of their regard. The women intended the gift to be such, 
for the package contained a petticoat. 

At Governor Ford’s suggestion the Smith brothers were 
allowed a large room in the Carthage jail, where they could see 
some of their friends. On the evening of June 26 the Prophet 
felt uneasy, and Hyrum read to his brother a passage from the 
Book of Mormon concerning the deliverance of God’s servants 
from prison; but, somehow, this passage did not seem to satisfy 
Joseph Smith, for he remained uneasy. The next day, Thursday, 
June 27, was a sultry summer day. Governor Ford had gone’ to 
Nauvoo with a force of voluntary soldiers to address the Mor- 
mons and assure them that their Prophet would have fair play. 
The prisoners, meanwhile, spent the afternoon listening to John 
Taylor, who was visiting them, sing “The Poor Wayfaring Man 


178 | BRIGHAM YOUNG 


of Grief.” Joseph was so pleased with the song that he asked that 
it be repeated. Hyrum Smith then read extracts from Josephus. 
At about five o’clock in the evening there was a noise in the com- 
pound outside the jail, followed by a few rifle shots. Then men 
rushed up the stairs of the jail to the room in the second story 
where the prisoners were sitting. The door of the room was 
pushed open, and shots were fired at the prisoners and their 
visitors. Hyrum Smith was hit in the face and the head, and 
fell, crying, “I am a dead man.” As he was falling, three more 





THE ASSASSINATION OF JOSEPH SMITH 
From a contemporary woodcut 


bullets struck him and killed him. Joseph Smith had a revolver, 
which a friend had smuggled into the jail, and with this he 
wounded three of the mob. When he could no longer keep them 
from entering the room, he rushed for the window to jump out, 
when a ball struck him, and he fell out of the window, shouting, 
“O Lord, my God!” It is said that when the Prophet’s body hit 
the ground he was still alive. One of the assailing mob propped 
it up against the wall of a well, four men advanced eight paces 
and fired their rifle balls into it, and Joseph died. A bareheaded, 
barefoot man, with his pants rolled up above his knees and his 
shirt sleeves above his elbows, is said to have approached the 
body with a long bowie knife, with the intention of cutting 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 179 


off the Prophet’s head, when, according to the Mormons, just 
as he had raised his arm with the knife in his hand, a blinding 
flash of lightning struck him with terror, and his arm fell power- 
less to his side. The assassins hurried away without the head 
of the Prophet. According to Mormon accounts, the mob that 
killed their Prophet and their Patriarch was made up of about one 
hundred and fifty men, whose faces were disguised by terrifying 
black paint. 

Meanwhile, Governor Ford had finished his speech of reassur- 
ance to the Mormons in Nauvoo and started back eighteen 
miles to Carthage. A few miles from Nauvoo his party met two 
men hurrying from Carthage, who told them that the Prophet 
and his brother had been killed, and that John Taylor had been 
seriously wounded. Ford took the two messengers back to 
Carthage with him in order that the Mormons might not be 
aroused to a sanguinary fury at this awful, unexpected news. It 
was the Governor’s opinion that the mob had planned its attack 
on Smith for the exact time that Ford was in Nauvoo, with the 
intention of inciting the Mormons to retaliate by killing the Gov- 
ernor, so that it might kill two birds by hurling only one stone 
itself, for the mob hated Ford almost as much as it hated Smith. 
Then the national excitement which would have been created by 
the assassination of the Governor by Mormons would have 
made a war of extermination against those people a natural result. 

Willard Richards, who was also in the jail room entertaining 
the Prophet when the assassination took place, sent this message 
to Nauvoo, which Governor Ford intercepted: 


“Carthage jail, 8 o’clock 5 min. p.m., 
“June 27th, 1844. 
“Joseph and Hyrum are dead. Taylor wounded, not very badly. 
I am well. Our guard was forced, as we believe, by a band of 
Missourians from 100 to 200. The job was done in an instant, and 
the party fled towards Nauvoo instantly.. This is as I believe it. 
The citizens here are afraid of the ‘Mormons’ attacking them; I 
promise them no. 
“W. RICHARDS. 
“N.B.—The citizens promise us protection; alarm guns have been 
fired. 
“JOHN TAYLOR.” 


Joseph Smith, as we have seen, had premonitions of disaster, 
but the Mormons have produced since his death several instances 


180 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


of the extent of his advance knowledge. Elder Stevenson 
brought forth the inevitable comparison: 


“At this time, our beloved Prophet was impressed with a sad 
foreboding somewhat similar to that experienced in Gethsemane by 
the Saviour just previous to the crucifixion, when he called upon 
the Father and said: ‘Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup 
from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.’ The Prophet 
Joseph said, while on his way to Carthage, ‘I am going like a lamb 
to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a 
conscience void of offence towards God and towards all men. I 
shall die innocent, and it shall be said of me, “he was murdered in 
cold blood.” ’ Elder Bates Nobles, now living, authorizes me to 
say that he heard the Prophet utter those very words.” *° 


There is also a description of the scene of the Prophet’s journey 
to Carthage. As he was leaving Nauvoo, he passed the Masonic 
Hall, which he had built, and, waving to some men who were 
standing outside, he said: “Boys, if I don’t come back, take care 
of yourselves, I am going like a lamb to the slaughter.”’ When 
he passed his own farm, he stopped and looked at it for a long 
time. When the party finally moved on, he turned and looked 
back at the farm several times. Some one commented on this, 
and Smith said: “If some of you had such a farm, and knew 
you would not see it any more, you would want to take a good 
look at it for the last time.’ All of these scenes are somewhat 
apocryphal. And against them we must place another statement, 
credited to the Prophet a short while before his death: “I defy 
all the world to destroy the work of God, and I prophesy they 
never will have power to kill me till my work is accomplished, 
and I am ready to die.” The question of whether his work was 
accomplished, and whether he was ready to die in 1844 has never 
been settled. Elder Stevenson estimated that at the time of his 
death the Prophet was thirty-eight years, six months and six 
days old, and that it was just fourteen years, two months and 
twenty-one days after the foundation of the Mormon Church 
when its Prophet was killed. ‘Strange as it may appear,” wrote 
Elder Stevenson, “our Lord and Saviour was murdered when 
only a few years younger than Joseph, and both were put to 
death for the same cause, namely, establishing of the Church of 


85 Reminiscences of Joseph, the Prophet, pp. 7-8. 


THE LAND: OF EGYPT 181 


Christ on the earth, the one in the former and the other in the 
latter days.”’ 

The bodies of Joseph and Hyrum were removed from the jail 
to Hamilton’s Hotel in Carthage. As soon as Governor Ford 
arrived in Carthage, he consulted John Taylor and Willard Rich- 
ards, and, at his suggestion, they sent this hurried message to 
their people: 


“The governor has just arrived; says all things shall be inquired 
into, and all right measures taken. I say to all citizens of Nauvoo— 
My brethren be still, and know that God reigns. Don’t rush out 
of the city—Don’t rush to Carthage—stay at home and be prepared 
for an attack from Missouri mobbers. The governor will render 
every assistance possible—has sent orders for troops. Joseph and 
Hyrum are dead, will prepare to move the bodies as soon as possible. 

“The people of the county are greatly excited, and fear the 
‘Mormons’ will come out and take vengeance. I have pledged my 
word the violence will be on their part, and say to my brethren in 
Nauvoo, in the name of the Lord, be still; be patient, only let such 
friends as choose come here to see the bodies. Mr. Taylor’s wounds 
are dressed, and not serious. JI am sound. 

“WILLARD RICHARDS.” 


A few days later the bodies of the Prophet and Patriarch were 
taken to Nauvoo and greeted with wailing and lamentation. 
Mother Smith recorded this scene in her book: 


“T had for a long time braced every nerve, roused every energy 
of my soul, and called upon God to strengthen me; but when I 
entered the room, and saw my murdered sons extended both at 
once before my eyes, and heard the sobs and groans of my family, 
and the cries of ‘Father! Husband! Brothers!’ from the lips of 
their wives, children, brother, and sisters, it was too much, I sank 
back, crying to the Lord, in the agony of my soul, ‘My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken this family!’ A voice replied, ‘I have 
taken them to myself, that they might have rest.’ ” °° 


The authoress of Mother Smith’s book outdid herself, or else 
Mother Smith was especially favored, for there is no record that 
Christ ever received any answer to his similar question. 

The bodies were concealed for a few days for fear of an 
attempt to cut off the heads for exhibition purposes in Carthage. 


36 Biographical Sketches, by Lucy Smith, p. 279. 


182 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Then they were buried near Joseph Smith’s former home. He 
had expressed a wish to be buried in a tomb near the Temple, but 
Emma Smith objected and refused to allow the Church to carry 
out that wish. Eight thousand Mormons gathered around the 
bodies of their dead leaders and resolved their trust in the Lord 
to revenge the foul murder. 

The memory of the Prophet was perpetuated a few days later. 
The rough boards which had been used as temporary coffins were 
sawed in pieces and distributed among Joseph’s and Hyrum’s 
friends, who had canes made of them, each with a lock of the 
Prophet’s hair set in the top. These canes are considered sacred 
relics to-day. : 

Eliza Snow, one of the Prophet’s wives and Mormonism’s 
poet, composed a long poem which appeared in the Nauvoo Neigh- 
bor a few weeks after the assassination. The last two stanzas 
read: 


“Now Zion mourns—she mourns an earthly head: 
The Prophet and the Patriarch are dead! 
The blackest deed that men or devils know 
Since Calv’ry’s scene, has laid the brothers low! 
One in their life, and one in death—they prov’d 
How strong their friendship—how they truly lov’d: | 
True to their mission, until death, they stood, 
Then sealed their testimony with their blood. 
All hearts with sorrow bleed, and ev’ry eye 
Is bath’d in tears—each bosom heaves a sigh— 
Heart broken widows’ agonizing groans 
Are mingled with the helpless orphans’ moans! 


“Ye Saints! be still, and know that God is just— 
With steadfast purpose in his promise trust: 
Girded with sackcloth, own his mighty hand, 
And wait his judgments on this guilty land! 
The noble martyrs now have gone to move 
The cause of Zion in the courts above.” 


In a poem called “The Seer,’ John Taylor expressed the Mor- 
mons’ appreciation in simpler fashion: 


“The Saints, the Saints, his only pride, 
For them he lived, for them he died. 
Their joys were his, their sorrows too: 
He loved the Saints, he loved Nauvoo.” 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 183 


The general sentiment of the Mormon commemorative verse 
was the same: that their Prophet had died, like Christ, a martyr 
to the most glorious of all causes. By their reckless shots on 
that June day the men of Carthage set a new religion on a firm 
basis, and instead of aiding to exterminate Mormonism, which 
was their avowed object, they created in the minds of many thou- 
sands a latter-day Jesus Christ. Mormonism had developed all 
the paraphernalia for a parallel with ancient Christianity; it only 
lacked a martyr, and the mob supplied the final touch with un- 
intentional generosity. John Brown once said, “I am worth in- 
conceivably. more to hang than for any other purpose.”’ So far 
as Mormonism was concerned, Joseph Smith could have said the 
same. He was assassinated at exactly the right time for his 
religion, however cruel and unfortunate his death was for him- 
self. Had he lived a few years longer, and had he conducted 
himself as he did during the few last years of his life, in all 
probability his church would have been broken into splinters by 
the impact of his own ambitious pretensions, or smashed into 
kindling by the rage of hostile mobs. Joseph Smith had become 
more ambitious than the angels and more dictatorial than the 
Hebrew God. His vision of himself as President of the United 
States, and his picture of himself as lord of a harem, were not 
only inconsistent with each other, but productive of opposition 
from Gentiles and dissension among Mormons. He was between 
these two smoldering fires when the rabble of Carthage made of 
him a martyr to be worshiped for many years to come by hun- 
dreds of thousands of sincere people. 

Governor Ford sensed this result of the martyrdom of Joseph 
Smith, when he wrote, somewhat sadly, in his History of Illinois: 


“Sharon, Palmyra, Manchester, Kirtland, Far West, Adam-on- 
Diahmon, Ramus, Nauvoo and the Carthage Jail, may become holy 
and venerable names, places of classic interest, in another age; like 
Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and 
Mount Calvary to the Christian, and Mecca and Medina to the 
Turk. And in that event, the author of this history feels degraded 
by the reflection, that the humble governor of an obscure State, 
who would otherwise be forgotten in a few years, stands a fair 
chance, like Pilate and Herod, by their official connection with the 
true religion, of being dragged down to posterity with an immortal 
name, hitched on to the memory of a miserable impostor. There 
may be those whose ambition would lead them to desire an immortal 


7 


184. BRIGHAM YOUNG 


name in history, even in those humbling terms. I am not one of 
that number.” 


But the days of Gethsemane and the days of Nauvoo are differ- 
ent. With the invention of the printing press times have changed 
somewhat, and in order that Joseph Smith might attain to the 
dignity and legendary significance of Christ, it would be neces- 
sary for too many books, pamphlets, and newspapers to be de- 
stroyed. There is a lack of romantic glamor about Palmyra, New 
York, Kirtland, Ohio, Carthage and Nauvoo, Illinois, which 
makes it impossible to drink in the events that took place in those 
towns as one absorbs unquestioningly the tales of the Bible. 
There is a crass lack of vagueness about Mormonism which de- 
tracts from its charm and throws into glaring reflection its crude 
and shiny newness. Its traditions are not built for hundreds of 
years, but look rather as if they are ready to fall at the hands of 
the wrecking company whenever the land on which they are 
located becomes more valuable for other purposes. And, although 
Governor Ford played the part of Pontius Pilate in this danger- 
ous western miracle play, like Pilate, he seems to have tried his 
best to save his prisoner from a mob that had its own reasons 
for his slaughter. 

Many of Joseph Smith’s followers were certain that he was 
about to rise again from the dead, and they watched daily for 
signs of this phenomenon. Some reported that they had seen 
him, attended by a celestial army, riding through the air on a 
great white horse. These rumors persisted for many years, and 
in 1857 Brigham Young delivered this denial in the Tabernacle 
at Salt Lake City: 


“Joseph is not resurrected; and if you will visit the graves you 
will find the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum yet in their resting place. 
Do not be mistaken about that; they will be resurrected in due time. 
. . . As quick as Joseph finishes his mission in the spirit world he 
will be resurrected. 

“T do not know that any news would come to my ears so sad and 
discouraging, so calculated to blight my faith and hope as to hear 
that Joseph is resurrected and has not made a visit to his brethren. 
I should know that something serious was the matter, far more than 
I now apprehend that there is. When his spirit again quickens to 
his body, he will ascend to heaven, present his resurrected body to 
the Father and the Son, receive his commission as a resurrected 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 185 


being, and visit his brethren on this earth, as did Jesus after his 
resurrection. . . . As quick as Joseph ascends to his Father and 
God, he will get a commission to this earth again, and I shall be 
the first woman that he will manifest himself to. I was going to 
say the first man, but there are so many women who profess to 
have seen him, that I thought I would say woman... 

“When Jesus was resurrected they found the linen, but the body 
was not there. When Joseph is resurrected, you may find the linen 
that enshrouded his body, but you will not find his body in the grave, 
no more than the disciples found the body of Jesus when they looked 
where it was lain.” 7 


But of Joseph Smith’s eventual position in heaven, and of the 
certainty of his resurrection on earth, Brigham Young never had 
any doubt. Several years after the foregoing sermon, he told 
his congregation: 


“From the day that the Priesthood was taken from the earth to 
the winding-up scene of all things, every man and woman must have 
the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their en- 
trance into the mansion where God and Christ are—I with you and 
you with me. I cannot go there without his consent. He holds the 
keys of that kingdom for the last dispensation—the keys to rule in 
the spirit-world; and he rules there triumphantly, for he gained full 
power and a glorious victory over the power of Satan while he was 
yet in the flesh, and was a martyr to his religion and to the name of 
Christ, which gives him a most perfect victory in the spirit-world. 
He reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and call- 
ing, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim—‘Oh that is very 
disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!’ 
But it is true. 

“T will now tell you something that ought to comfort every man 
and woman on the face of the earth. Joseph Smith, junior, will 
again be on this earth dictating plans and calling forth his brethren 
to be baptized for the very characters who wish this was not so, in 
order to bring them into a kingdom to enjoy, perhaps, the presence 
of the Father and the Son; and he will never cease his operations, 
under the directions of the Son of God, until the last ones of the 
children of men are saved that can be, from Adam till now. ... 

“Tt was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foun- 
dations of the earth were laid, that he should be the man, in the 
last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to 
the people, and receive the fulness of the keys and power of the 


87 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 285-286. 


186 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eye upon him, 
and upon his father, and upon his father’s father, and upon their 
progenitors clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, 
from the flood to Enoch, and from Enoch to Adam. He has 
watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its 
fountain to the birth of that man. He was foreordained in eternity 
to preside over this last dispensation, as much so as Pharaoh was 
foreordained to be a wicked man, or as Jesus to be the Saviour of 
the world because he was the oldest son in the family.” * 


Those who refused to believe this were in grave danger of eternal 
damnation, and Brigham Young at another time illustrated that 
danger by telling his own version of the story of Noah and the 
Ark: 


“Did you ever hear the story of an old man that came to Noah 
when he was building the ark? ‘What, Mr. Noah, are you still at 
the ark? You are a veritable old fool, -uilding an ark far away 
from any water! How are you going to float it? ‘Wait a little 
while, and I will show you: by-and-by the Lord will break up the 
mighty deep and send forth the waters and drown the wicked.’ ‘Oh, 
you are a fool, Noah! You had better build a good house, and 
plant and till the earth. I am going home,’ &c. ‘Go on,’ said Noah; 
‘by-and-by you will learn that I am right.’ They waited year after 
year, and by-and-by the fountains of the great deep were broken 
up, and the rain began to descend. The old man came along, and 
Noah said to him, ‘What do you think now, neighbor?’ ‘Oh, this 
is only a shower; it looks like clearing up; it will soon be over.’ In 
a short time the old man came again, wading in water to his knees, 
when Noah said, ‘Well, what do you think now?’ ‘Oh, it will soon 
clear away.’ He came again, and that time he was paddling along 
in water up to his neck, and said, ‘Won’t you take me in, Noah?’ 
‘I have got my load; all who have received tickets are aboard, and 
those who have not tickets cannot come aboard. What do you think 
of it now, old man, is it only a little shower?’ Then it was not, 
‘Damn old Noah!’ but they were crying, ‘Oh, Mr. Noah, take us in.’ 
By-and-by it will be, ‘Mr. Smith, won’t you have a little compassion 
on us?’ ‘No,’ Joseph will say; ‘you would not take a ticket when I 
offered it to you by my brethren; you refused my tickets, and said 
it was “nothing but a shower, we guess it will pass off.”’ Accord- 
ing to the words of the Saviour, ‘As it was in the days of Noah, 
so it will be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.’ ” *° 


38 Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, pp. 289-290. 
89 Journal of Discourses, vol. 8, pp. 229-230. 


ee ot a 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 187 


Meanwhile, Joseph Smith’s body is still resting in his grave at 
Nauvoo, but his followers have not given up hope that, as it was 
in the days of Noah, so will it be at some indefinite time in the 
future. | 

Governor Ford made an effort to discover the murderers of 
Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and to bring them to trial. But the 
mob was determined that they should not be punished, and more 
than a thousand men, under arms, guarded the court room to 
keep away Mormons who might sit on the jury or bear testi- 
mony. ‘The accused were all acquitted. One of the accused was 
Judge Thomas C. Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal. Many 
years later he spoke to Kate Field, the journalist, when she visited 
him. ‘They say I helped to kill Joe Smith,” said the judge, 
laughingly. “Did you?’ asked Miss Field. ‘Well, the jury said 
not,” and then the good old judge laughed louder. 


vil 


When Joseph Smith’s body fell from the window ledge to the 
ground outside Carthage jail on that sultry afternoon in June, 
1844, Brigham Young was in the railway station at Boston, 
waiting for the train to Salem. His journal, which was written 
some time after the event, has this entry: “In the evening, while 
sitting in the depot waiting, I felt a heavy depression of Spirit, 
and so melancholy I could not converse, with any degree of 
pleasure. Not knowing anything concerning the tragedy enact- 
ing at this time in Carthage jail, I could not assign my reasons 
for my peculiar feelings.” Parley P. Pratt, who at the same 
moment was on a canal boat near Utica, on his way to Nauvoo, 
experienced peculiar feelings too, he wrote later. He and his 
brother William were talking on deck, when, suddenly, “a strange 
and solemn awe came over me, as if the powers of hell were let 
loose. I was so overwhelmed with sorrow I could hardly speak; 
and after pacing the deck for some time in silence, I turned to 
my brother William and exclaimed—‘Brother William, this is a 
dark hour; the powers of darkness seem to triumph, and the 
spirit of murder is abroad in the land; and it controls the hearts 
of the American people, and a vast majority of them sanction the 
‘killing of the innocent. My brother, let us keep silence and not 
open our mouths. If you have any pamphlets or books on the 
fullness of the gospel lock them up; show them not, neither open 


188 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


your mouth to the people; let us observe an entire and solemn 
silence, for this is a dark day, and the hour of triumph for the 
powers of darkness. O, how sensible I am of the spirit of murder 
which seems to pervade the whole land.’” This was said, Parley 
Pratt wrote in his autobiography, at the same hour, “‘as nearly 
as I can judge,” as the assassination of the Smiths. Brother 
William did not write an autobiography. 

~ Almost two weeks after Joseph Smith was killed, Brigham 
Young first heard the news, and he hurried to Nauvoo with the 
others of the Apostles whom he could gather on the way. He 
met Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, and Wilford Woodruff at Albany 
and traveled the rest of the journey with them. It would be of 
great value to know their conversation as they sat impatiently in 
the railroad cars that were taking them back to a community 
without a leader, which, when they left it, had been a city with 
aking. Brigham Young wrote that the first thing he thought of 
upon hearing of the death of the Prophet was, who now had the 
keys of the kingdom: ‘The first thing that I thought of was 
‘whether Joseph had taken the keys of the kingdom with him 
from the earth. Brother Orson Pratt sat on my left; we were 
both leaning back on our chairs. Bringing my hand down on 
my knee, I said, “The keys of the kingdom are right here with 
the church.’”’ Perhaps Brigham Young meant to imply by that 
gesture that the keys of the kingdom were right there in his 
pocket; but, be that as it may, he soon decided that if they were 
not there, he was going to pick the lock. 

While Joseph Smith was being assassinated, Sidney Rigdon was 
in Pittsburgh. During the last two years of his life Joseph Smith 
and Sidney Rigdon had not been in agreement, and upon one 
occasion the Prophet accused Rigdon at a Sunday meeting before 
the people of conspiring to betray him to the Missourians. Sev- 
eral attempts were made by Smith to “‘disfellowship” Sidney 
Rigdon, but by the clever use of sentimental oratorical appeals, 
reminiscent of the good old days when he and Smith suffered to- 
gether, Rigdon had always been able to move the general con- 
ference of the people, and they would not vote to disfellowship 


him. Once, when the people had failed to approve the Prophet’s - 


desire to get rid of Rigdon, Joseph Smith said to them: “I have 
thrown him off my shoulders, and you have again put him on me. 
You may carry him, but I will not.” Rigdon had proved of great 
service to the Prophet. He exerted considerable influence on the 


‘ 
eS ee ee ee ee 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 189 


theology of Mormonism, for he had enjoyed experience with 
several sects before he joined the Mormons. He had also in- 
fluenced Joseph Smith’s revelations to some extent. It was he, 
too, who must have supplied the Prophet with his foreign phrases 
and their translations, for Rigdon knew Hebrew, Latin, and 
Greek, and he had read considerably more English literature than 
any of the other Mormon leaders. During the last year at Nauvoo 
Sidney Rigdon was fifty-one years old, while his Prophet and 
superior was only thirty-eight; Sidney Rigdon was opposed to 
polygamy, at least so far as it concerned his own daughter, and 
there is no record that he had taken unto himself additional wives; 
the Prophet had adopted polygamy as the most important tenet 
of his religion, and he coveted Rigdon’s daughter. It was natu- 
ral that Rigdon should lose the Prophet’s confidence. 

As soon as he heard of Joseph Smith’s death, Sidney Rigdon 
hurried back to Nauvoo. He arrived there on August 3, 1844, 
almost a week before Brigham Young, and he set about with un- 
seemly haste to capture the control of the headless church. He 
urged that a conference of the people be called at once, and he 
was very anxious that his succession to the leadership should be 
settled before Brigham Young had time to arrive in Nauvoo. He 
told the people that he had been appointed by heaven to be their 
guardian, and he received several appropriate visions to cor- 
roborate the appointment. He finally succeeded in arranging a 
conference of the people for August 8. The conference was first 
set for August 6, but it was postponed, and it was this delay 
which was fatal to Sidney Rigdon’s plans, for Brigham Young 
and the Apostles reached Nauvoo at 8 o'clock in the evening of 
August 6. If the conference had taken place that day, Sidney 
Rigdon would have been by virtue of his oratory president of 
the Church, and Brigham Young would have been in the 
strategically disadvantageous position of the leader of a schism. 

At 10 o'clock in the morning on August 8 the people met in 
the large open-air grove overlooking the Mississippi River. It 
was a windy day, and there was difficulty in hearing the speakers. 
Sidney Rigdon arose in a waggon placed so that he spoke with 
the wind. He was nervous and embarrassed, for the unexpected 
return of the Apostles had disconcerted him. For an hour and 
a half he spoke, but his oratory was not up to his usual standard, 
and the people showed evident signs of restlessness. Meanwhile, 
Brigham Young had quietly taken a seat in the regular speaker’s 


190 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


stand, which placed him with the backs of the people towards 
him. As soon as Rigdon’s last words had fallen, Brigham Young 
arose and addressed the people. They had not expected to hear 
his voice; many of them did not know that he was in Nauvoo; 
and several thousand backs were suddenly turned towards Sid- 
ney Rigdon, and with pleased wonder the people faced Brigham 
Young. The effect was magnetic. An observer wrote: “If 
Joseph had risen from the dead and again spoken in their hear- 
ing the effect could hardly have been more startling. It seemed 
to be the voice of Joseph himself; and not only that: but it 
seemed in the eyes of the people as though it was the very person 
_of Joseph which stood before them.” Many wrote later that the 
scene reminded them of that transformation in the Bible, when 
the mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha. The voice, some said, 
‘was the voice of Joseph. “If I had not seen him with my own 
eyes,” wrote Wilford Woodruff, “there is no one that could have 
convinced me that it was not Joseph Smith; and any one can 
testify to this who was acquainted with these two men.” Orson 
Hyde said in a sermon many years later: 


“T know that when President Young returned with the Twelve to 
Nauvoo, he gathered them around him, and said he, ‘I want you to 
disperse among the congregation and feel the pulse of the people, 
while I go upon the stand and speak.’ 

“We went among the congregation, and President Young went on 
the stand. Well, he spoke, and his words went through me like 
electricity. ‘Am I mistaken?’ said I, ‘or is it really the voice of 
Joseph Smith? This is my testimony ; it was not only the voice of 
Joseph, but there were the features, the gestures and even the stature 
of Joseph before us in the person of Brigham. And though it may 
be said that President Young is a complete mimic, and can mimic 
anybody, I would like to see the man who can mimic another in 
stature, who was about four or five inches higher than himself. 
Every one in the congregation—every one who was inspired by the 
Spirit of the Lord—felt it. They knew it. They realized it.’ *° 


Eliza Snow commemorated the extraordinary scene in this 
verse: | 
“Brigham Young, the Lord’s anointed, 
Loved of heav’n and fear’d of hell; 
Like Elijah’s on Elisha, 
Joseph’s mantle on him fell.” 


40 Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p. 181. 





THE LAND OF EGYPT 191 


Brigham Young first told the people that he was astonished 
that instead of mourning the death of their great leader, he found 
them holding meetings to choose his successor. He himself, he 
said, would rather sit in sackcloth and ashes for a month than 
appear before the people, but he pitied their loneliness and felt 
constrained to step forward. He pointed out that there was a 
regular, ordained body whose duty it was to obtain the will of 
the Lord on such questions, and he wondered that the people had 
not delegated this question of the succession to the quorums of 
Apostles and elders to which it belonged by virtue of their au- 
thority. He urged that the general conference of the people ad- 
journ, and that a meeting of the quorums be held that afternoon. 
The people acquiesced. By deftly reminding them of the death 
of their Prophet, and by the implication that they were out of 
order, Brigham Young made the people feel ashamed of them- 
selves. That afternoon the quorums of the Church leaders met, 
and Brigham Young addressed them. He said: 


“T do not care who leads this church, even though it were Ann 
Lee; but one thing I must know, and that is what God says about 
it. I have the keys and the means of obtaining the mind of God 
on the subject. . Joseph conferred upon our heads all the keys 
and powers belonging to the apostleship which he himself held be- 
fore he was taken away, and no man or set of men can get between 
Joseph and the Twelve in this world or in the world to come... . 

“You cannot fill the office of a Prophet, Seer and Revelator: God 
must do this. You are like children without a father and sheep 
_ without a shepherd. You must not appoint any man at our head: 
if you should, the Twelve must ordain him. You cannot appoint a 
man at our head, but if you do want any other man or men to lead 
you, take them and we will go our way to build up the kingdom in 
all the world. . . . I will tell-you who your leaders or guardians 
will be. The Twelve—I at their head!” * 


Brigham Young did not once mention himself as the possible 
head of the Church or as successor to Joseph Smith. He merely 
contended that the Twelve Apostles, as ordained by God through 
the dead Prophet, Joseph Smith, were the heads of the Church, 
and that no man could alter that eternal position, This position 
of the Twelve Apostles as immediately in line of succession to 
the Prophet had always been recognized. He then offered them 
the alternatives: Sidney Rigdon, or the Twelve Apostles. Since 


41 The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo, by Brigham H. Roberts, p. 330. 


192 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Brigham Young asked nothing for himself, and since Sidney 
Rigdon had asked in his speech that he be appointed to succeed 
Joseph Smith, whose first counselor he had been for many years, 
‘the contrast was fatal to Rigdon. As Brigham Young was head 
of the Twelve Apostles, he had nothing to lose by their succession 
to authority. He then asked the people to vote whether they 
would sustain the Twelve, and when the negative was called for 
only a few dared raise their hands. The meeting then adjourned 
until the Church conference of the following October, and the 
Church was in the hands of the Twelve, who were in the hands 
of Brigham Young. 

Gradually, during the last years of the Prophet, Brigham 
Young had become his trusted adviser. After Young’s return 
from his successful missionary tour of England, and after he 
led the people from Missouri to Illinois, he was taken into the 
confidence of the Prophet to a much greater extent than formerly, 
and he is mentioned more often than any of the other leaders 
inthe latter part of the Prophet’s journal. When the Nauvoo 
charter was passed, Brigham Young became one of the city coun- 
cilors. There is only one instance of a disagreement between 
the Prophet and Brigham Young. This was over the question of 
the money collected by the Apostles for the Temple and the 
Nauvoo House. At a conference of the Church Joseph Smith 
urged that a rule be passed requiring the Twelve Apostles to 
receipt for all money they collected on their travels. Brigham 
Young objected to the implied reflection on his honesty and that 
of his associates. He asked the conference not to “muzzle the 
ox that treadeth out the corn.” To which Joseph Smith replied, 
“We will make the ox tread out the corn first, and then feed 
him.”’ Nothing definite was decided, but about a month later 
there is record of Brigham Young signing a bond of $2,000, 
and pledging himself by this security to deliver to Joseph Smith 
all money collected. 

The Prophet had considered the missionary work of great im- 
portance, for he realized that in its success lay his strength and 
his financial welfare. He was wise, therefore, to place at its 
head a man of Brigham Young’s practical abilities, and this de- 
cision was of great value to Brigham Young also. It not only 
gave him an outlet for his great administrative talent, but it also 
removed him from too close contact with his eccentric leader. If 
Brigham Young had spent all his days as the right-hand man of 





BrRIGHAM YOUNG IN MIDDLE AGE 
From a daguerreotype, 1850 





THE LAND OF EGYPT 193 


the Prophet at Nauvoo, sooner or later there would have been a 
conflict, for their personalities differed too much. Brigham 
Young was practical, efficient, and loved order; Joseph Smith 
was more fond of words and parades than work and plans, 
Although Brigham Young was in many respects naive, there must 
have been things about Joseph Smith which he doubted were 
divine. There are no definite hints in his sermons or his con- 
versation of these doubts, but his personality was such that if 
he was ever deluded, he deluded himself. In Mormonism Brig-' 
ham Young discovered an opportunity for himself to rise to the 
position of a leader of men, which his practical abilities led him 
to suppose to be his natural right. Once he had joined the 
religion, he accepted its doctrines and dogmas unqualifiedly. The 
question of other world salvation was not one on which he had 
ever had any very definite ideas of his own, and therefore he 
could with ease and with sincerity accept what another man 
formulated for him concerning the other world, if that was in 
accord with his very definite ideas concerning this one. Very 
often during the first ten years of his association with the 
Mormon Church Brigham Young must have felt that his oppor- 
tunity for preéminence would never come, but the only alterna- 
tive to his position of pleasant and influential subordination to 
Joseph Smith was a return to the struggles of an itinerant 
painter, glazier, and carpenter. So far as the religion itself was 
concerned, Brigham Young had undoubtedly succeeded in con- 
vincing himself while he was so busy persuading others, and 
after the assassination of Smith he was too busy with executive 
affairs and the task of preserving the lives of his people to worry 
much about his soul. His religion now became so involved in 
his everyday life that it became impossible to abandon the one 
without ruining the other completely. Brigham Young literally 
lived his religion, as he so often begged his people to do, and it 
was a religion easy for him to live, because, according to its pre- 
cepts, God took a hand in every phase of practical life, and, 
strangely enough, seemed to command what His people wanted 
most to do. : 

Brigham Young’s first problem as head of the Church was the 
security of his own position and the necessary dispersal of his 
rivals. Of these Sidney Rigdon was the first. Rigdon had a 
few friends, whom he had convinced that Brigham Young, in 
spite of his high-sounding words about wishing nothing for him- 


194 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


self, had stolen the leadership of the Church. Secretly, Rigdon 
began to organize a schism, and he told his few followers that 
he had received a vision in which God ordered him to lead the 
Church to Pittsburgh, the new Promised Land, which also hap- 
pened to be Sidney Rigdon’s home town. He made extravagant 
speeches, in one of which he predicted that the time would 
come when he would be so powerful that: “I will cross the 
Atlantic, encounter the Queen’s forces, and overcome them—plant 
the American standard on English ground, and then march to 
the palace of Her Majesty, and demand a portion of her riches 
and dominions, which if she refuse, I will take the little madam 
by the nose, and lead her out, and she shall have no power to 
help herself. If I do not do this, the Lord never spake by 
mortal.’’ Rigdon did not ordain his followers mere prophets 
or priests, but kings. He began his secret propaganda in Nauvoo 
on Monday, September 2, 1844, and on Tuesday, September 3, 
Brigham Young knew all about it. Tuesday night Brigham 
Young called on Sidney Rigdon and tried to persuade him to 
repent, but he refused, and a few days later he was excommuni- 
cated by the Twelve Apostles, an act which the people later ap- 
proved in special conference. By the united voice of the whole 
Church Sidney Rigdon was “delivered over to the buffetings of 
Satan,’ until such time as he might repent and humble himself 
before God and his brethren. 

In a speech against Sidney Rigdon, Orson Hyde compared him 
to a young man who has paid his respects to a young lady, and 
“has got the mitten,’ and who then, in order to cover his own 
shame and disgrace impugns the virtue of the young lady. ‘We 
preferred his room to his company,” said Orson Hyde. “This 
plain talk made him angry: ‘Now,’ said he, ‘I will tell all your 
wickedness, your secret abominable acts—your midnight doings— 
for you are the worst, the most abominably corrupt people on 
the earth. You are not fit to live.’ Well, well, Sidney; fall 
down, and like Judas let your bowels burst out; and let the 
world see how much filth you had in you.” 

A short time after his excommunication Sidney Rigdon left 
with his followers for Pittsburgh, where he established a Mor- 
mon church of his own and published a newspaper advocating 
his cause, but before long his church fell into decay and his news- 
paper was discontinued. Sidney Rigdon himself lived for many 
years in obscurity, and he did not prosper. Efforts were made 


\ THE LAND OF EGYPT 195 


to persuade Rigdon to admit that the Book of Mormon was 
founded on the Spalding manuscript, but he always denied that 
charge. 

Other dissenters from the leadership of Brigham Young were 
members of Joseph Smith’s family. The Prophet’s mother 
claimed that she had visions in the course of which she was told 
that William Smith, Joseph’s wayward brother, should be the 
new prophet. William Smith claimed only that he was president 
pro tempore of the Church, holding that office in trust for young 
Joseph Smith, the eldest son of the Prophet by his first wife, 
Emma. This young man, however, was not anxious to go into 
his father’s business. According to his autobiographical sketch, 
he tried keeping a store, worked as a railroad contractor, studied 
law, practised farming, and served as a justice of the peace, but 
he found difficulty making a living at any of these occupations, 
and finally, in February, 1860, he took his place at the head of 
the church which had organized many years before to maintain 
his right of succession. This church, the Reorganized Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is still in existence, with more 
than fifty thousand members, and its main difference from the 
Utah Mormons, as we have noted, is the belief that Joseph Smith 
never preached or practised polygamy. 

Emma Smith, the Prophet’s widow, refused to acknowledge 
the ascendancy of Brigham Young, and she openly stated that 
she had never for a moment believed the “apparitions and 
visions’ of her late lamented husband. Two and a half years 
after the death of the Prophet she married L. C. Bidamon, with 
whom she kept a tavern in Nauvoo. 

Another branch of the Mormon Church was started after the 
death of Joseph Smith. This schism was headed by James Jesse 
Strang, one of the most picturesque characters associated with 
Mormonism. Strang was born on a farm in Scipio, New York. 
He was educated at Fredonia Academy, Hanover, New York, 
and was more learned than most of the Mormon leaders. He 
once began an autobiography, which it is a pity he did not 
finish, for, if we can judge from the fragment which is pre- 
served, it would have been an extraordinary human document. 
Writing of his childhood, Strang said: “I learn from many 
sources that in childhood I exhibited extraordinary mental im- 
becility. Indeed, if I may credit what is told me on the sub- 
ject, all who knew me, except my parents, thought me scarcely 


196 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


more than idiotic.” He started his autobiography with that frank 
statement, and he added: “Long weary days I sat upon the floor, 
thinking, thinking, thinking! occasionally asking a strange, un- 
infantile question and never getting an answer. My mind 
wandered over fields that old men shrink from, seeking rest and 
finding none till darkness gathered thick around and I burst into 
tears and cried aloud, and with a voice scarcely able to articulate 
told my mother that my head ached.” * 

While he was working on his father’s farm, Strang studied 
law and was admitted to the bar. He wandered from town to 
town, changing his occupation almost as often as his abode. He 
taught a country school, edited a newspaper, and became a tem- 
perance lecturer. Finally he settled in Wisconsin with his wife’s 
brother and practised law at Burlington. A judge before whom 
he appeared, William P. Lyon, said of Strang that he was in- 
terested mainly in unusual points of law and cases of quaint 
interest. Once he brought suit for a client to recover the value 
of honey stolen by his neighbor’s thievish bees, and Strang made 
an eloquent charge against the bees, for he was above all an 
orator. “I think,” said Judge Lyon, “be liked the notoriety that 
resulted from that sort of thing.” 

Mormon missionaries visited Burlington, Wisconsin, about one 
year after Strang settled there, and their arguments appealed to 
his temperament. He immediately threw all his energy and ora- 
torical ability into the Mormon movement. In January of 1844 
he was baptized, and Joseph Smith liked him so much that in 
February he gave him authority to establish a stake of Zion in 
Wisconsin. Strang, inspired by the success of Joseph Smith, who 
was then at his zenith, planned great things for himself, and he 
worked hard to make his small stake of Zion populous. When 
Joseph and his brother were assassinated, Strang hurried to 
Nauvoo and exhibited a letter which he claimed the Prophet had 
written to him, by which he was appointed successor to Joseph 
Smith’s spiritual and temporal powers as head of the Church. 
The postmark on Strang’s letter was black, and Brigham Young’s 
followers pointed out that all letters left the Nauvoo post office 
with a red post mark. But when Strang attempted to verify 
the dispatch of his letter by reference to the Nauvoo post office 
register, the register strangely disappeared. Strang was excom- 
municated and delivered over to “the buffetings of Satan.” 

42 Michigan Historical Society Collections, 1903, pp. 203-204. 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 197 


_ Angry at his lack of success, Strang returned to Voree, Wis- 
consin, where he set up an independent Mormon kingdom. He 
imitated the late Prophet’s methods by receiving revelations regu- 
larly from God, by means of which he silenced all objections 
to his powers and policies. He even capped the parallel by dis- 
covering some buried plates, from which he translated The 
Book of the Law of the Lord. Strang realized early what 
Joseph Smith did not realize until it was too late, that if he was 
not to be molested by persecution, he must take his followers to 
an isolated spot. Accordingly, he chose Beaver Island, far away 
in Lake Michigan. There was plenty of timber on the island, 
and the waters teemed with fish; he was cut off from neighbors, 
but he could always get to large towns by steamer. With four 
men Strang started for Beaver Island, and they explored the 
place. Slowly his followers increased to sixty-two, only seven- 
teen of them men, for polygamy was also practised under Strang’s 
leadership. Twelve Apostles were sent out into the world to 
make converts, while Strang and his followers spent their time 
building a schooner, a steam sawmill, and printing The Book of 
the Law of the Lord at the royal press, for Strang had decided 
to call himself king, and he was respectfully addressed by his 
followers as King Strang. The harbor of Beaver Island was 
named St. James, after Strang, and nearby a river was called 
Jordan, while a hill in the interior was named Mount Pisgah. 
The Jordan discharged its waters into the Sea of Galilee. 

By 1850 Strang’s community had increased slightly, and he 
was ready to be crowned King Strang. The 8th of July, 1850, 
was Coronation Day. The ceremony, according to Mrs. Cecilia 
Hill, who was an eyewitness, took place in a log tabernacle. 
Strang was dressed in a bright red robe, and was followed in 
regal procession by his councilors and his Twelve Apostles. 
George A. Adams, who was six feet tall, and who had been an 
actor of heavy parts in Boston, crowned James Jesse Strang, 
King Strang. Adams later testified that he was called upon to 
play the part of the Apostle Paul, and he reluctantly admitted in 
court that when he played the Apostle Paul, he used the costume 
he had formerly worn in Boston as Richard III. The King’s 
red robe was also one of Adams’s former Shakespearean cos- 
tumes. As the Apostle Paul, Adams placed a circlet, with a 
cluster of stars in front, on Strang’s red hair. The King was 
small and heavy; he wore a red beard, and his dark eyes were set 


198 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


close under wide brows and a huge forehead. Every July 8 was 
thereafter kept as a holiday, and for the occasion each family was 
commanded to bring the King a fowl, and the burnt offering of 
a heifer was made at the expense of the community. 

King Strang soon began to hand down dictatorial mandates. 
He prohibited the use of intoxicants and tobacco, coffee and tea. 
He required his subjects to pay tithes. Gambling was prohibited. 
The women were required to wear bloomers. Neighbors on 
adjacent islands, mainly fishermen, began to resent Strang’s 
powers and habits, and they planned concerted action against 
him, but before they could carry out their plans, an important 
quarrel arose within the community. Thomas Bedford and Alex- 
ander Wentworth had been publicly whipped by command of the 
King because they had upheld their wives’ refusal to wear 
bloomers. This was in June, 1856. The Michigan, a United 
States ship, was anchored in the port of St. James, and King 
Strang had been invited to go abroad. As he was stepping onto 
the pier, Bedford and Wentworth shot him in the back and beat 
him over the head and face with their weapons. Then they ran 
aboard the Michigan and were taken to Mackinac, where they 
were welcomed as heroes and never brought to trial. For several 
days King Strang lay dying, and he gave last instructions to his 
followers for the government of the kingdom. He asked that 
his body be removed to Voree, Wisconsin, and he died there on 
July 9, 1856, and was buried in an unmarked grave. 

Soon after Strang’s death the Gentiles invaded Beaver Island, 
burned the Mormon houses, and destroyed the printing press 
which had published a newspaper and The Book of the Law of the 
Lord.** An example of the literary quality of the Gospel Herald, 
which Strang published at Voree, Wisconsin, is the following 
verse from the issue of Thursday, November 25, 1847: 


“CHEWING TOBACCO IN THE HousE oF Gop 


“A word I would drop to the Church-going folk 
Of country and town, and not in a joke. 
Now chewing tobacco and spitting the juice 
In the House of the Lord, can find no excuse; 


43 In the destruction of the Royal Press at Beaver Island and the burning of 
the houses, most of Strang’s works were destroyed. His pamphlets and the 
few remaining copies of The Book of the Law of the Lord are excessively 
rare and form one of the valuable items of Americana. 





THE LAND OF EGYPT 199 


But want of politeness, or rather of grace, 

Or want of respect for the hallowed place: 

Yet here it is practiced by A, B, and C, 

And there it is followed by E, F, and G, 

You never need ask where these gentry sit, 

Just look on the wall and you'll see by the spit; 
In dark filthy puddles it spreads on the floor, 
From the pulpit all round each way to the door. 
The scene is disgusting! and how must you feel 
If, in such a place, you’re expected to kneel? 

Yet often it happens these men are so good, 
They bend on their knees while others have stood. 
This done, they return to their labor again, 

Still chewing their quid and spreading the stain. 
A scandal to men!—a scandal to grace! 

Here decency blushes and covers her face! 

Do throw out your chew ere you enter the door, 
And never so rudely behave any more; 

But down with your cash for the sand and the soap, 
And the horrible job of cleaning all up.” 


King Strang was the author, besides his religious publications, 
of a report on The Natural History of Beaver Island, published 
by the Smithsonian Institution. 

After his death the Mormons of Strang’s community scattered 
to neighboring islands and to other parts of the United States. 
Strang’s life, like Joseph Smith’s, had ended in assassination, 
and this was taken by many of his followers as an indication 
that he was the rightful successor. When Strang wrote to 
John Taylor and Orson Hyde, challenging the orthodox fol- 
lowers of Brigham Young to discuss publicly Strang’s authority, 
they replied: “Sir—After Lucifer was cut off and thrust down 
to hell, we have no knowledge that God condescended to investi- 
gate the subject or right of authority with him. Your case has 
been disposed of by the authorities of the Church. Being satis- 
fied with our own power and calling, we have no disposition to 
ask from whence yours came.” The followers of Brigham 
Young regarded Strang’s fatal end as only another instance of the 
divine truth of their new leader’s prophetic utterance, for soon 
after the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young said: “All that 
want to draw away a party from The Church after them, let 
them do it if they can, but they will not prosper.” 


200 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


VIII 


In spite of these few schisms, Brigham Young was able to 
keep the main body of the Mormon Church faithful to his leader- 
ship. Other and more important difficulties, however, soon beset 
him, for the mob that had murdered Smith discovered that the 
death of the Prophet would not affect the growth of his com- 
munity and its consequent political and economic power. Ap- 
peals urging the expulsion of the Mormons from Illinois ap- 
peared regularly in the newspapers, and the Madison Express 
reported the prevailing sentiment of Hancock County to be that, 
“Every Saint, mongrel or whole-blood, and every thing that 
looked like a Saint, talked or acted like a Saint, should be com- 
pelled to leave.” It was contended specifically that the Mormon 
leaders were counterfeiters, and that their followers were chronic 
thieves. At Lima, Illinois, a mob assembled and warned the 
‘Mormons to leave town. They refused, and the mob burned 
down 175 houses and forced the inhabitants to flee to Nauvoo for 
shelter. Murders were committed on both sides in the course of 
riots and individual quarrels, for the Mormons did not believe 
in non-resistance. 

One method of protection which the Mormons adopted was 
akin to non-resistance, but it embodied visible warning of danger. 
The boys of Nauvoo all carried large bowie knives, and when 
a man came to town who was regarded by the authorities as a 
suspicious character, the boys were sent to visit him. They took 
out their large knives and began whittling pine shingles, accom- 
panying their action with quiet, but suggestive, whistling. Fre- 
quently, they followed the undesirable stranger wherever he went, 
and sometimes their knives came close to his body. When he 
objected, they pretended neither to hear nor to see. Eventually, 
the victim would make his way to the ferry, accompanied by a 
crowd of boys whittling and whistling, but saying nothing. When 
one of the men who had voted for the repeal of the Nauvoo 
charter, which was repealed by the legislature at this time, com- 
plained to Brigham Young that a crowd of whittling boys fol- 
lowed him everywhere, and that his life was in danger, Brigham 
Young replied: “I am very sorry you are imposed upon by the 
people: we used to have laws here, but you have taken them away 
from us: we have no law to protect you. ‘Your cause is just, 


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THE LAND OF EGYPT 201 


but we can do nothing for you.’ Boys, don’t frighten him, don’t.” 
It was Brigham Young’s policy, however, to avoid open conflict 
between his people and their enemies, for he wished to demon- 
strate to the rest of the country that the Mormons were perse- 
cuted without provocation. Finally, however, after the burning 
of many houses, and after some people were murdered, he and 
his associates realized that it was both useless and dangerous to 
remain in Illinois. They agreed to remove all Mormons from 
Nauvoo by the spring of 1846. An armed force was stationed 
in Nauvoo during the preparations for the removal. 

During the winter of 1846-1847 almost every house in Nauvoo 
was turned into a workshop, and property of all kinds was ex- 
changed for waggons and animals. Meanwhile, frantic efforts 
were made to finish the Nauvoo Temple, for God had commanded 
that it be built. For years money had been collected for this 
Temple, and the Mormons estimated its cost at $600,000. They 
also maintained that the construction and divine design of the 
Temple exhibited “more wealth, more art, more science, more 
revelation, more splendor, and more God, than all the.rest of the 
world.” Many Gentiles marveled that the Mormons continued 
to expend money and effort on a structure they were about to 
abandon, but the completion of the Temple was a wise move 
on Brigham Young’s part. God had decreed that a house be 
built for Him in Nauvoo, and Brigham Young argued that it 
was up to-the Saints to build Him one, no matter what had 
happened between the time of the revelation and the time for its 
execution. If this revelation had been left unfulfilled, it would 
always have been a source of skeptical inquiry upon the part of 
earnest Saints. Revelation was the foundation of the Mormon 
religion, and Brigham Young was always careful to carry out 
prophecies whenever it was humanly possible to do so. He also 
felt that a completed building would be possible to sell, while a 
half-finished building was only fit to be abandoned. The follow- 
ing advertisement appeared in the Nauvoo New Citizen soon after 
the departure of the Mormons: 


“TEMPLE FOR SALE 


“The undersigned Trustees of the Latter Day Saints propose to 
sell the Temple on very low terms, if an early application is made. 


202 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


The Temple is admirably designed for Literary or Religious pur- 
poses. Address the undersigned Trustees. 
“Nauvoo, May 15, 1846. 
“ALMON W. BABBITT, 
“JosePH L. HEywoop, 
“JoHN S. FULMER.” 


The Temple was examined and admired by members of several 
Catholic organizations, but there were no purchasers. Perhaps 
this was due somewhat to the architectural method employed in 
its construction. Joseph Smith had insisted that God was its de- 
signer, and that He revealed His plans daily in the course of con- 
struction. Governor Ford found the building a symbol of the 
Mormon theology, “‘a piece of patch-work, variable, strange and 
incongruous.” As soon as the Nauvoo Temple was practically 
completed in October, 1845, Brigham Young and Parley Pratt 
worked day and night giving people their promised endowments 
for eternity, which could only be done in the Temple. In two 
months more than 1,000 Mormons “received the ordinances.” 

‘ Early in the spring of 1846 some of the Mormons were ready 
to leave Nauvoo. Their removal was expedited by several indict- 
ments brought against Brigham Young and the Twelve Apostles 
on charges of counterfeiting. The Twelve Apostles, with about 
2,000 followers, crossed the Mississippi River early in February, 
before the ice had broken. It was thought by the leaders that 
if the Mormons showed signs of their sincerity by starting west 
with 2,000 of their people, the anti-Mormons would be satisfied 
to allow the rest to remain in Nauvoo until such time as they 
could leave with convenience. But this was an error. Posses of 
citizens of Hancock County were organized for the purpose of 
removing the Mormons by force. The leader of the anti-Mormon 
party was the Rev. Thomas S. Brockman, whom Governor Ford 
described as “a large, awkward, uncouth, ignorant, semi-bar- 
barian, ambitious of office, and bent upon acquiring notoriety. 
... To the bitterness of his religious prejudices against the 
Mormons, he added a hatred of their immoral practices, probably 
because they differed from his own.”’ Brockman had eight hun- 
dred men under his leadership, and he led them in an attack on 
the Mormons for the purpose of removing them from Nauvoo 
immediately. Those Mormons who were left in Nauvoo raised 
a company of one hundred and fifty men, threw up breastworks, 


i , 
eo eo ee 


THE LAND OF EGYPT 203 


and firing began on both sides; but its animosity was greater than 
its accuracy, for little damage was done. The anti-Mormons 
exhausted their ammunition and retreated. In a few days they 
returned with more cannon balls,, and the firing was resumed. 
This time one Gentile and three Mormons were killed, and a few 
men were wounded on both sides, and to accomplish this result 
between seven hundred and nine hundred cannon balls were fired 
and many more rifle bullets. Both sides kept very far apart. 
Finally, at the suggestion of some of the more moderate of the 
Gentiles, it was agreed that the Mormons should give up their 
arms and remove from the state immediately. They were allowed 
two hours to pack up and evacuate Nauvoo. This battle occurred 
in September, 1846, when the Church leaders and their 2,000 
followers were en route to the West. 

The mob parodied with crude cruelty the rite of Mormon 
baptism. In a letter to Franklin Richards, Elder Thomas Bul- 
lock described this scene: “They seized Charles Lambert, led him 
into the river, and, in the midst of cursing and swearing, one 
man said—‘By the Holy Saints I baptize you, by order of the 
commanders of the temple,’ (plunged him backwards) and then 
said—‘the commandments must be fulfilled, and God damn you, 
you must have another dip’ (then threw him on his face), then 
sent him on the flatboat across the river, with the promise 
that, if he returned to Nauvoo, they would shoot him.”’ 

When the anti-Mormon mob entered Nauvoo, they found 
a literally deserted city, lying as if in a doze from the summer 
heat. There were no sounds except those made by the rolling 
Mississippi and by the birds in the trees. Workshops and smithies 
were empty of men, but filled with fresh shavings and coals. No 
dogs barked, and inside the empty houses were white ashes lying 
in the fireplaces. Col. Thomas L. Kane, who visited Nauvoo 
three days after the last Mormons had left, said that he felt it 
necessary to tread on tiptoe, ‘as if walking down the aisle of a 
country church, to avoid rousing irreverent echoes from the 
naked floors.”’ 

About two years after the Mormons left Nauvoo, Etienne 
Cabet, the French communist, took over the city for his Icarian 
communistic society. He purchased the abandoned Temple. On 
November 10, 1848, an incendiary set fire to the Temple, and 
the tower was destroyed. Two years later a tornado blew down 
the north wall, and the rest of the building was later removed. 


———— 


——_ 


204. BRIGHAM YOUNG 


The Icarians did not prosper, and they eventually left Nauvoo. 
It was a source of satisfaction to the Mormons that no community 
was able to raise the city to its former level of prosperity, and 
they profess to see in this an omen of the hand of God. 

The Mormons were reluctant to leave the successful city they 
had established and the rich farms they had cleared. Their atti- 
tude and that of their enemies was aptly expressed in a sermon 
‘many years later by George A. Smith: 


“We were quite willing to go, for the best of all reasons, we could 
not stay. There was no chance under the heavens fer us to stay, 
and be protected, in any State in the Union; and I suppose some 
of them felt as the pious old Quaker did when he was on board a 
vessel which was attacked by pirates—he was too pious to fight, it 
was against his conscience, but when one of the pirates started to 
climb a rope and get upon the vessel, the old Quaker picked up a 
hatchet and said, ‘Friend, if thee wants that piece of rope, thee 
can have it and welcome,’ and immediately cut the rope and let him 
drop into the sea, where he was drowned.. So our enemies thought 
they would let us go into the heart of the Great American Desert 
and starve, as they compelled us to leave every thing that would make 
life desirable.” 


Where the Mormons were going was a problem that Brigham 
Young had not solved. He and his followers always have said 
that God knew all the time, but if this was so, God did not see 
fit to tell the Mormons their ultimate destination. Before his 
death Joseph Smith had planned to remove the Church to the 
Rocky Mountains, and for this purpose he selected an advance 
exploring party. He sent Orson Hyde and Parley P. Pratt to 
Washington with a petition asking for the right to settle in Ore- 
gon, and asking also for an armed escort of 100,000 soldiers. 
Meanwhile, the mob became active, and there was no time to 
send out the exploring party. While they were in Washington, 
Pratt and Hyde received from Stephen A. Douglas a copy of 
Colonel Frémont’s report of his explorations in the West, and 
this proved useful to Brigham Young. When Henry Clay had 
suggested a few years before that Joseph Smith transport his 
people to Oregon, Smith had replied with this invective: 


“. . the renowned Secretary of State, the ignoble duellist, the 
gambling Senator, and Whig candidate for the Presidency, Henry 
Clay: the wise Kentucky lawyer, advises the Latter-day Saints to go 





eM 





EXPULSION OF THE MorMoNS FROM NAvuvoo 
From a contemporary engraving 


eee 
ed Te 


BA PG th MOM SS AP 


Jos—EpH SMITH AT THE HEAD oF THE NAvuvoo LEGION 
From a contemporary engraving 





THE LAND OF EGYPT 205 


to Oregon to obtain justice and set up a government of their own; 
O ye crowned heads among all nations, is not Mr. Clay a wise man, 
and very patriotic! why Great God! to transport 200,000 people 
through a vast prairie; over the Rocky Mountains, to Oregon, a 
distance of nearly 2,000 miles, would cost more than four millions! 
or should they go by Cape Horn, in ships to California, the cost 
would be more than twenty millions! and all this to save the United 
States from inheriting the disgrace of Missouri, for murdering and 
robbing the saints with impunity !” * 


In the passion of the controversial moment the Prophet, his 
church historians admit, made a slight error. There were not 
200,000 Saints in all the world, and the population of Nauvoo 
to be transported over the Rocky Mountains did not reach 15,000, 
according to the highest Mormon estimates. The fact that this 
could be done was proved by Brigham Young, as we shall now 
see. 


44 The Voice of Truth, p. 58. 


Chapter V 


EXODUS 


I 


WHEN he was asked by Senator Overman whether he thought 
the laws of God superior to the laws of man, Senator Reed Smoot 
answered, cautiously, that he considered the laws of God superior 
upon the conscience of man. When Senator Overman pressed 
the point, Mr. Smoot, who was fighting for his seat in the Senate, 
added that if the law of God conflicted with the law of the coun- 
try in which he lived, “I would go to some other country where 
it would not conflict.” That essentially was the Mormon atti- 
tude from the beginning of Mormon history, and when their. 
‘country thought their God was wrong, the Mormons moved from 
“one unpopulated region to another. Finally, in 1846 they began. 
their trek to the West, which they believed to be inhabited by 
God, whose laws they considered themselves chosen to admin- 


ister, and by the Indians, who had no laws with which they could’ 


come into conflict. Just where in the West they were going, the 


' Mormons did not know, but Oregon and California were in the) 


\.mind of Brigham Young. He knew that he wanted to take his 
people beyond the jurisdiction of the United States, and when he 
left Nauvoo, California was a part of Mexico, and Oregon was 
a subject of dispute between the United States and Great Britain. 
As we have seen, the alternatives were a Mormon exodus or a 


-Mormon massacre, and Brigham Young once expressed tersely| 
the whole purpose of the migration of his people: “To get away, 


._ from Christians.’’ ee 


At eleven o’clock on the morning 5 February 15, 1846, Brig- | 


ham Young crossed the Mississippi River and camped with his | 


2,000 Saints on Sugar Creek. Snow still covered the ground, 
and the river was still frozen hard. The temperature was twenty 
degrees below zero. Nine babies were born in the camp of freez- 


ener 


| ing, shivering people. One of them was born in a hut by the side ~ 


206 





EXODUS 207 


of the road, where some women held dishes over the mother to 
prevent the heavy rain from soaking her and her new child while 
she was giving birth to it. 

While Brigham Young was encamped on Sugar Creek with his 
two thousand followers, a letter arrived from Elder Samuel Bran- 
nan, the Mormon representative in New York. He wrote that a 
syndicate of gentlemen in New York, including Amos Kendall, 
formerly postmaster-general of the United States, and A. G. 
Benson, had convinced him that the United States government 
had the right to disarm the Mormons and prevent them from 
moving into the West. These men assured Brannan that this 
would happen, unless political influence was used in Washington, 
and they offered to exercise the necessary influence if the Mor- 
mons would agree in writing to assign every alternate lot of land 
in the new home they chose to the syndicate of gentlemen in 
New York. The President of the United States, Mr. Polk, they 
said, was a member of their syndicate, “though his name was 
not to be used in the matter.” Elder Brannan had signed the 
agreement with the syndicate, which he forwarded to Brigham 
Young for his approval. In his letter urging this approval 
Brannan wrote: “‘l am aware it is a covenant with death, but we 
know that God is able to break it, and will do it. The Children 
of Israel, in their escape from Egypt, had to make covenants 
for their safety, and leave it for God to break them; and the 
Prophet has said, ‘As it was then, so shall it be in the last days.’ 
And I have been led by a remarkable train of circumstances to 
say, amen; and I feel and hope you will do the same.” But Brig- 
ham Young refused to be intimidated, and he did not depend 
upon God to break the covenant, but simply ignored it himself. 

For two weeks the Mormons remained in the camp on Sugar 
Creek, building and repairing waggons, and gathering together 
sufficient provisions by working for Iowa farmers. On March 1 
the camp was broken up, and the whole party moved forward five 
miles. Mud was deep in the roads, and during the first days of 
the journey the Mormons exchanged their horses for oxen when- 
ever possible. Even with oxen, however, the progress was piti-; 
_ fully and distressingly slow, and during the first month of travel) 
they never made more than six miles each day. The camps lived, 

eanwhile, on wild turkeys, prairie hens, and deer brought in by 
the hunters of the party. 

During April it rained every day, and besides the ordinary 


; 


208 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


‘discomforts of rain in an open camp, it also subjected the emi- 


| grants to floods, swollen streams, and high rivers, which were 
impossible to cross until they had subsided. There were long, 


miserable delays in rain-swept camps, with nothing to do but 
wait and try to keep dry. During the rain the cold continued 
and froze the mud fast around the waggons at night, so that each 
morning it required considerable effort to pull them out of frozen 
ruts. Orson Pratt wrote in his journal for April 9: “With great 
exertion a part of the camp were enabled to get about six miles, 
while others were stuck fast in the deep mud. We encamped 
at a point of timber about sunset, after being drenched several 
hours in rain. The mud and water in and around our tents were 
ankle deep, and the rain still continued to pour down without 
cessation. We were obliged to cut brush and limbs of trees, and 
throw them upon the ground in our tents, to keep our beds from 
sinking in the mire.” The rain made it almost impossible to 
keep camp fires lighted. Twice the roads were so bad that the 
people had to remain in camp for two weeks without fires. At 
other times they were only able to travel one mile during the 
day. 

The nights were so cold that grass could not grow, and the 
teams of oxen and horses had to live on bark and the limbs 
of trees. The animals became so weak from lack of fodder that 
progress was even slower. Then rattlesnakes became common, 
and many of the animals were poisoned. 


....The Mormons, however, maintained their faith that God was 


looking after them. Those who had been ruthlessly expelled from 
Nauvoo by the mob after the departure of Brigham Young and 
the first party, were now encamped on Sugar Creek and were suf- 
fering from lack of food. Suddenly, flocks of quail came across 
the sky and settled near their tents, waiting docilely for the hun- 
gry Mormons to capture and eat them. The people praised God 
and ate the quail. When Brigham Young heard of this miracle, _ 
he exclaimed in his journal: “Tell this to the nations of the » 
earth! ‘Tell it to the kings and nobles and great ones.” In the 
distress of their circumstances the Mormons forgot that quail 
were common in the neighborhood and had been seen to settle 
peacefully at that season in other years. 

In Brigham Young’s party, which was progressing slowly 
through Iowa, another miracle was performed. A horse became 
violently ill, and one of the brethren decided to cure him by the 





EXODUS 209 


laying on of hands. Some doubted if this were proper, but the 
owner of the horse quoted the words of the Prophet Koel, “that 
in the last days the Lord would pour out His spirit on all flesh.” 
This quotation satisfied the orthodox, and six of the brethren laid 
hands on the horse and prayed for his instant recovery. “The 
horse,’ wrote the author of The Historical Record, “immediately 
rolled over twice, sprang to his feet, and was soon well.” 

The worries of Brigham Young, as responsible leader of this 
band of misery, were great, and George Q. Cannon reported that 
by May, 1846, Brigham Young’s coat, which in Nauvoo he 
found difficulty in buttoning, “lapped over twelve inches.” Brig- 
ham Young himself remarked in a public meeting that he could 
scarcely keep from lying down and awaiting the resurrection. 
Besides the constant difficulty of finding food for his people, he 
was worried by the impatience of those who wished to travel 
faster than their brethren, and by the despair of those who could 
not travel so fast. Some who became discouraged turned their 
waggons back east. 

The journey was not entirely gloomy, however, for Brigham 
Young had brought along with his expedition not only apostles 
and priests, but also Captain Pitt’s brass band. It is said that 
members of this band were found by a Mormon missionary in 
an English town, and that after they had listened to his argu- 
ments, and he had listened to their music, they took up their 
instruments and followed the missionary to the United States. 
To the music of this band, whenever the weather permitted, the 
people danced quadrilles, polkas, Scotch reels, and minuets, led by 
Brigham Young, and preceded by prayer. The waltz was banned 
as unseemly. A member of the party had a copy of Mme. Cottin’s 
Elizabeth, or The Exiles of Siberia, which was a favorite senti- 
mental novel of the first half of the nineteenth century. It was 
particularly comforting to the Mormons, because it described 
in florid language the sufferings of a despised people and the 
heroics of a virtuous maiden. The book was very popular 
throughout the world, but in the Mormon camp this one copy 
received wide circulation, for it was one of the few books besides 
the Bible in possession of the people. Men and women read it 
with delight by moonlight in their waggons and passed it on to 
the next waggon after they had finished. Psalms and hymns 
were also a source of entertainment, and the Mormons had a few 
songs composed by their own people. One of them went: 


210 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“In upper California, O that’s the land for me— 
It lies between the mountains and the great Pacific sea. 
The Saints can be protected there, and enjoy their liberty 
In upper California, O that’s the land for me.’ 


And another comfort was polygamy. By this time the numbers 
of wives had increased, in spite of the secrecy with which the 
divine command had to be executed. On Tuesday, May 5, 1846, 
William Clayton made this entry in his journal: “Went over to 
J. D. Lee’s and learned that some of the clerks had been to the 
President and told him that I had ordered that they should in- 
clude in their reports each wife a man has. I did not do any 
such thing, only requested each name should be in full accord- 
ing to the order of a previous council. The President said it 
did not matter about the names being in full but I think it 
will prove it does. Dr. Richards thinks as I do. The President, 
I understand, appeared quite angry.”’ William Clayton was Clerk 
of the Camp of Israel, which was the name the Mormons gave 
their expedition. In the course of the day he kept a very complete 
journal of their travels, to which we owe credit for the most 
intimate details of the daily life of ‘the Mormons during this 
period. In an introduction to his journal, which was published 
by his descendants, William Clayton is thus described: “He was 
methodical, always sitting in his own armchair, having a certain 
place at the table, and otherwise showing his love for order, 
which he believed the first law of heaven. His person was clean 
and tidy; his hands small and dimpled. He wore very little 
jewelry but what little he had was the best money could buy. He 
would not carry a watch that was not accurate, and his clothing 
was made from the best material.” It is fortunate that such a 
man accompanied the expedition in a position where he could 
observe and record his observations, and it is also easy to under- 
stand that the omission of the full names of all the wives would 
prove distressful to him. 

The people of lowa, through whose towns and villages the 
Mormons passed, told Colonel Thomas L, Kane that they did not 
seem despondent, “but at the top of every hill, before they dis- 
appeared, were to be seen looking back, like banished Moors, on 
their abandoned homes and the far-seen temple and its glittering 
spire.” 

( Brigham Young ruled every action of his people. William 


‘“ 
—— 


EXODUS PAL 


Clayton had a music box and a set of china which he thought of 
selling to an lowa family, but before doing so, he went to Brig- 
ham Young’s waggon to ask permission. The President was 
busy, but Heber Kimball, his first counselor, gave Clayton per- 
mission to sell his possessions. Frequently the band was re- 
quested to play by the people of the towns and villages near which 
the Mormons camped. The members of the band earned money 
and provisions in this way. Once they played for a pail of honey 
and again for eight bushels of corn. At one town they earned 
$25 and their meals, but at another, owing to the opposition of 
priests, they earned only $7. Before the band played in any town, 
it was necessary for Clayton, who was its manager, to get the 
permission of Brigham Young. 

~~ In June the rain stopped, but then the mosquitoes became a 
“distracting pest. On June 13, 1846, Clayton wrote that they 
were very troublesome, “there being so many of them and so 
bloodthirsty.” Plague and fever now attacked the camp, for 
they were in the marshy section of the country on the east bank 
_of the Missouri River, known as “Misery Bottom.” So many of 
“the Mormons died that it was impossible to dig graves fast enough 
“to bury them, “and you might see women sit in the open tents 
keeping the flies off their dead children, sometimes after decom- 
position had set in.’ * 

There was much grumbling upon the part of some of the peo- 
ple, and the usual amount of friction which results when person- 
alities are thrown together. Clayton wrote on Sunday, June 14: 
“T camped here and in the evening told the men a part of what 
I thought of their conduct.” Later he recorded: “Pelatiah Brown 
went swimming all the forenoon and when Corbitt asked him to 
help with the teams he swore he would not if Jesus Christ would 
ask him.” Most of the grumbling was because of short rations. 

In the summer the Mormons arrived near the present site of 
(Council Bluffs, Iowa, and established themselves in winter quar- 
Yers there and across the Missouri River on the present site of 
Florence, Nebraska. Here the band played for the Indians, who 
were practically the only inhabitants of the country, and pleased 
them so much that they raised $10.10 as a token of their appre- 
ciation, 

At Winter Quarters the people built log cabins and dugouts, 


1 The Mormons, by Thomas L. Kane, p. 50. Col. Kane was a member of the 
camps for a time, although he was not a Mormon. 


212 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


and planted crops, for it was the plan of Brigham Young to use 
this temporary location as a halfway settlement until he had 
succeeded in transporting all his people to their indefinite home 
near the Rocky Mountains. Brigham Young had intended to 
start for the Rocky Mountains with a small advance party in 
1846, but he was detained at Winter Quarters by the necessity for 
superintending a settlement there. Under his direction a mill to, 
grind their corn was built, and he also set the people to work! 
building a council house, for it was his object to keep them as) 
busy as possible in order to prevent dissension. They mani- 
factured wash-boards and willow baskets, which were sold in the 
nearest Missouri towns. Regular religious meetings were held, 
and dances and parties kept the people amused. Brigham Young 
was delighted with the sight of what he described in his journal 
as “the ‘Silver Greys’ and spectacled dames, some nearly a hun- 
dred years old, dancing like ancient Israel.’ On the whole, how- 
ever, life was difficult. The lack of vegetables resulted in “black- 
leg” scurvy; provisions were scarce, and the prospect of getting 
fresh supplies before the crops could erow were slight. all 

At the camp in Winter Quarters Brigham Young received his | 
first, and one of his few revelations, which he issued publicly on | 
January 14, 1846. It told the Saints to do all that Brigham 
Young had already urged them to do and thereby approved all 
that he had already done for their welfare. The revelation also 
promised that the Lord would stretch forth His hand and save the 
Mormons from hardship. Brigham Young always resisted the - 
temptation to get revelations, which Joseph Smith never could 
resist; as Artemus Ward put it, “Smith used to have his little 
Revelation almost every day—sometimes two before dinner. 
Brigham Young only takes one once in a while.” Early in his 
career as President of the Church, Brigham Young announced 
that Joseph Smith had left enough revelations to guide the people 
for twenty years, and that no new ones were required until all the 
old had been obeyed. 

Brigham Young’s business at Winter Quarters also consisted of 
negotiations with the Indians and the United States Indian agents 
for permission to remain on the Winter Quarters site, which 
legally belonged to the Pottawattomie Indians. The Indian super- 
intendent of the district denied this request, and insisted that the 
Mormons must move on, but Colonel Kane, who had been nursed 
by the Mormons when he was taken ill in their camp, used his 





EXODUS 213 


influence at Washington and obtained permission for them to 
remain. Brigham Young sent Big Elk, the chief of the local 
tribe, some presents and a letter requesting that he restrain his 
people from stealing Mormon cattle. Big Elk visited Brigham 
Young and apologized for the conduct of some of his tribe; he 
expressed gratitude for the presents and promised that there 
would be no more thefts. The Mormons did not experience any 
of the melodramatic Indian horrors which made the early devel- 
opment of the West a subject of fiction for so many years. This 
was due to Brigham Young’s policy of catering to the wishes 
and respecting the rights of the skilled original inhabitants of the © 
country. He developed their good will by his gifts and his con- 
sideration; the result was that only two horses were lost to the 
Indians in the original Utah pioneer party, and no men, women, 
or children were killed. 

There was one instance of a difficulty with a half-breed Indian, 
recorded by the notorious Bill Hickman, who wrote a book of 
confessions in which he established himself as the chief gun 
man of Brigham Young. At Winter Quarters this half-breed 
had an argument with Brigham Young, and swore that he would 
have the President’s scalp, and that he would hold a war dance over 
that scalp. “Brigham sent me word,” wrote Hickman, “to look 
out for him. I found him, used him up, scalped him, and took his 
scalp to Brigham Young saying—‘Here is the scalp of the man 
who was going to have a war-dance over your scalp; you may 
have one over his, if you wish.’ He took it and thanked me very 
much. He said in all probability I had saved his life, and that 
some day he would make me a great man in the Kingdom. This 
was my first act of violence under the rule of Brigham Young. - 
Soon after this, I was called upon to go for a notorious horse 
thief, who had sworn to take the life of Orson Hyde. I socked 
him away, and made my report which was very satisfactory.” * 


II 


While the Saints were encamped at Winter Quarters, Captain 
James Allen, of the United States Army, rode into camp one day 


2 Brigham’s Destroying Angel: Being the Life, Confession, and Startling 
Disclosures of the Notorious Bill Hickman, The Danite Chief of Utah. 
Written by Himself, with explanatory notes by ‘J. AH. Beadle, Esq., of Salt Lake 


City, p. 47. 


214 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


towards the end of June, 1846, and had a conference with Brig- 
ham Young. Captain Allen showed Brigham Young the request 
of President Polk for five hundred Mormons to serve in the war 
against Mexico, which had just begun. Once more luck was 
against the Mormons. They had expected to find territory in 
the West which was not under the jurisdiction of the United 
States, and to establish there an independent theocracy. While 


| they were en route, the United States captured all the available 
/ territory from Mexico, and the Mormons found themselves by 


the time they reached Utah still under the government they were 
endeavoring to leave behind them. However, their objections to 
the government of the United States were not strenuous, for 
their conflicts had been almost entirely with state governments 
and local mobs; they accepted their inevitable subordination to 
the United States without complaint. 

In speaking of this requisition for five hundred of his follow- 
ers Brigham Young said in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City on 
Sunday afternoon, September 13, 1857, more than ten years 
after the event: 


“There cannot be a more damnable, dastardly order issued than ° 
was issued by the Administration to this people while they were in 
an Indian country, in 1846. Before we left Nauvoo, not less than 
two United States senators came to receive a pledge from us that 
we would leave the United States, and then, while we were doing 
our best to leave their borders, the poor, low, degraded curses sent 
a requisition for five hundred of our men to go and fight their 
battles! That was President Polk; and he is now weltering in hell 
with old Zachary Taylor, where the present administrators will soon 
be, if they do not repent.” ® 


In the heat of the moment Brigham Young intentionally falsi- 
fied the circumstances, for at the time he delivered that sermon 
he was engaged, as we shall see, in defying all the force of the 
United States government. ‘The request for five hundred Mor- 
mons to join the Mexican War was not unwelcome to the Mor- 
mons at the time and was the direct result of their own solicita- 
tion. In his letter of appointment to J. C. Little as eastern 
representative of the Mormon Church, Brigham Young had writ- 
ten on January 20, 1846: “If our Government shall offer any 
facilities for emigrating to the Western coast, embrace those 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 231-232. 





EXODUS 215 


facilities, if possible, as a wise and faithful man.” Mr. Little 
called on President Polk in Washington. President Polk’s diary 
for that day, June 3, 1846, contains this entry: 


“Held a conversation with Mr. Amos Kendall & Mr. J. C. Little 
of Petersborough, N. H. (a mormon) to-day. They desired to see 
me in relation to a large body of Mormon emigrants who are now 
on their way from Nauvoo & other parts of the U. S. to California, 
and to learn the policy of the Government towards them. I told 
Mr. Little that by our constitution the mormons would be treated as 
all other American citizens were, without regard to the sect to which 
they belonged or the religious creed which they professed, and that 
I had no prejudices towards them which could induce a different 
course of treatment. Mr. Little said that they were Americans in 
all their feelings, & friends of the U. S. I told Mr. Little that we 
were at war with Mexico, and asked him if 500 or more of the 
mormons now on their way to California would be willing on their 
arrival in that country to volunteer and enter the U. S. army in 
that war, under the command of a U. S. officer. He said he had 
no doubt they would willingly do so. He said if the U. S. would 
receive them into the service he would immediately proceed and 
overtake the emigrants now on the way and make the arrangement 
with them to do so.... It was with the view to prevent this 
singular sect from becoming hostile to the U. S. that I held the con- 
ference with Mr. Little, and with the same view | am to see him 
again to-morrow... .’# 


President Polk was particularly anxious to conciliate the Mor- 
mons at the moment because he had enough difficulties to contend 
with. The United States was at war with Mexico, and Great 
Britain was disputing the claim of the United States to Oregon. 
War with Great Britain was feared, and President Polk did not 
wish the large body of Mormons in the West to become allies 
of either Mexico or Great Britain. The Mormons, on their part, 
were anxious to get west, and the opportunity to transport five 
hundred men, not only at the expense of the government, but with 
the additional advantage of salaries en route appealed to Mr. J. C. 
Little, and he knew that it would appeal also to Brigham Young’s 
practical mind. It was Little who urged President Polk to 
enlist the Mormons while they were en route rather than wait 
until they had arrived in California. At first President Polk was 


4 bee Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845-1849, vol. 1, pp. 
445-449. 


216 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


opposed to this plan because he did not wish the Mormons to be 
the first troops to reach California, for, as he said in his diary a 
few days later, the few settlers of California were already alarmed 
at the rumor that the Mormons were on their way. However, 
President Polk changed his mind and consented finally to the 
enlistment of Mormons. At the time Brigham Young was so 
grateful for the favor President Polk conferred upon his people 
by enlisting five hundred of them, with the understanding that 
they would not fight in Mexico, but would proceed to California, 
that the Mormons voted the Democratic ticket at the next elec- 
tion. It is said that the Mormons did more than this: that they 
voted the Democratic ticket three or four times. Brigham Young 
and the Mormons contended a few years later that this request 
for five hundred men was not only persecution, but that it was 
alsoatrap. They said that it was the plan of the federal govern- 
ment to exterminate the Mormons by force if they:should refuse 
the request for five hundred men. This contention of Brigha 
Young’s is not supported by any evidence. | 
Immediately after his conference with Captain James Allen 
Brigham Young made efforts to raise a Mormon Battalion. A 
mass meeting was held at which Brigham Young addressed the 
people. Among other things he said: “Now, I would like the 
brethren to enlist and make up a battalion, and go and serve your 
country, and if you will do this, and live your religion, I promise 
you in the name of Israel’s God that not a man of you shall fall 
in battle.’ This was not such a rash promise as it sounds, for 
the understanding with the government was that the Mormon 
Battalion would not fight Mexicans, but would merely guard 
California. In his speech Brigham Young also said: ‘After we 
get through talking, we will call out the companies; and if there 
are not young men enough we will take the old men, and if they 
are not enough we will take the women. I want to say to every 


man, the Constitution of the United States, as formed by our 


fathers, was dictated, was revealed, was put into their hearts by 
the Almighty, who sits enthroned in the midst of the heavens; 
although unknown to them, it was dictated by the revelations of 
Jesus Christ, and I tell you, in the name of Jesus Christ, it is as 
good as ever I could ask for. I say unto you, magnify the laws. 
There is no law in the United States, or in the Constitution, but 
I am ready to make honorable.” Then an old American flag 
was hurriedly brought out of the storehouse of things rescued 


OS am 


SSS ete oe 


EXODUS 217 


from the mob at Nauvoo, hoisted to the top of a tree mast, and 
in three days the Mormon Battalion was mustered and ready to 
march. Brigham Young ordered the men “to take their Bibles 
and Books of Mormon, and if they had any playing cards to burn 
them.” The thing that interested Brigham Young very much 
about this enlistment was the allowance the United States made in 
advance of forty-two dollars for each man for clothing. This 
amounted to $21,000 for the five hundred men, and most of this 
money went to their families or to the Church treasury. In 
addition the men sent their salaries as soldiers back to their fami- 
lies and to their church. Brigham Young sent men to Santa Fé 
to get the soldiers’ money. 

The Mormon Battalion marched from Winter Quarters at 
Council Bluffs, lowa, to Fort Leavenworth. After drawing arms 
and equipment, they started for California, traveling along the 
Arkansas River to Santa Fé. Many of them became ill with 
fever, and some died in the course of the long march. The main 
body continued along the Rio Grande to Albuquerque and finally 
arrived in California in January, 1847. Eliza Snow commemo- 
rated their hardships in this verse: 


“When ‘Mormon’ trains were journeying thro’ 
To Winter Quarters, from Nauvoo, 
Five hundred men were called to go 
To settle claims with Mexico— 
To fight for that same Government 
From which, as fugitives we went. 
What were their families to do— 
Their children, wives, and mothers too, 
When fathers, husbands, sons were gone? 
Mothers drove teams, and camps moved on. 


“And on the brave battalion went 
With Colonel Allen who was sent 
As officer of government. 

The noble Colonel Allen knew 

His ‘Mormon boys’ were brave and true, 
And he was proud of his command 

As he led forth his ‘Mormon band.’ 
He sickened, died, and they were left 
Of a loved leader soon bereft! 

And his successors proved to be 

The embodiment of cruelty. 


218 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Lieutenant Smith, the tyrant, led 
The cohort on, in Allen’s stead 
To Santa Fé, where Colonel Cooke 
The charge of the battalion took.” 


But the truth of the matter seems to be that the Mormon boys, 
like other soldiers, were ever ready to complain. One source of 
their complaints was a certain Dr. Sanderson, the company phy- 
sician. He was from Missouri, which was enough to arouse Mor- 
mon suspicion and hatred, and he insisted upon dosing them 
with calomel for all diseases. He was also opposed to the laying 
on of hands and anointing with blessed oil as curatives. The 
determination of the Mormon soldiers to take no calomel, and 
another medicine which they maintained was arsenic in disguise, 
was strengthened by a letter from Brigham Young, in which he 
said: “If you are sick, live by faith, and let surgeons’ medicine 
alone if you want to live.” But Dr. Sanderson stood by the 
troops with his iron spoon and insisted that his calomel be thrown 
nowhere btitt down Mormon throats. One of the soldiers im- 
mortalized the incident in the following verse: 


“A doctor which the government 
Has furnished proves a punishment. 
At his rude call of ‘Jim along Joe’ 
The sick and halt to him must go. 
Both night and morn this call is heard, 
Our indignation then is stirred. 
And we sincerely wish in hell 
His arsenic and calomel.” 


The song which maintained in the soldiers a sense of their 
grievance and deprivations, and to the tune of which they marched 
from Santa Fé to California, was also the effort of one of their 
number, and contained these two lines: 


“How hard, to starve and wear us out 
Upon this sandy desert route.” 


Some one in commenting on this strenuous march of the Mormon 
Battalion to California said: ‘“‘Bonaparte crossed the Alps, but 
these men have crossed a continent.”” The Mormons have always 
been certain which was the greater achievement. 





EXODUS 219 


At the end of its period of enlistment, the Mormon Battalion 
was mustered out in California. Some of the company reén- 
listed in San Diego and built up that town. Others proceeded to 
northern California, where they heard that their brethren had 
established themselves in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and 
they proceeded there to join them. 


III 


Brigham Young held the semi-annual conference of the Church 
at Winter Quarters on April 6, 1847, and the next morning he 
left Winter Quarters with a party of 148 of his people, to find 
a place of settlement in the Far West. The party was made up 
mainly of sturdy men, but three women accompanied them. One 
of these was Clarissa Decker Young, one of Brigham Young’s 
wives, another was Harriet Page Wheeler Young, one of the 
wives of Brigham’s brother, Lorenzo, and the other was Ellen 
Saunders Kimball, one of the wives of Heber C. Kimball. Two 
children also accompanied the party. The train consisted of 
seventy-two prairie schooners, ninety-three horses, fifty-two 
mules, sixty-six oxen, and there were also nineteen cows, seven- 
teen dogs, a few cats, and some chickens. Some of Brigham 
Young’s personal equipment for the trip was received by him as 
gifts from devoted subordinates. John D. Lee wrote in his 
memoirs that he presented Brigham Young with seventeen ox 
teams: “He accepted them and said, ‘God bless you, John.’ But 
I never received a cent for them—I never wanted pay for them, 
for in giving property to Brigham Young I thought I was loan- 
ing it to the Lord.” 

The waggons of this pioneer party were of all descriptions. 
Heavy carts rattled along, followed by two-wheeled trundles, 
large enough to carry a baby or a sack of meal. Many of the 
large prairie schooners had wooden hoops instead of iron, for 
iron was scarce in Nauvoo, and as they rattled over the rough 
roads and hilly trails, they broke down and delayed their drivers. 
One of the women in the party discovered that the jolting of these 
heavy waggons would churn milk, and all the Mormon parties 
thereafter made butter en route. By digging hollows in the hill- 
sides, they made ovens in which to bake the dough which they 
prepared as the waggons jogged along. Whenever the camp 
halted, the shoemakers set up stone benches and repaired the 


220 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


men’s boots, the gunsmiths fixed rifles, and some of the men did 
weaving and dyeing. Knitting, spinning, and weaving kept the 
women busy during the long afternoon journeys. | 
“ “As soon as the Mormons reached the prairies, their difficulties 
began. Large prairie fires made it necessary to alter the course 
by. many miles to keep the waggons and animals from the fire. 
“The prairie,” wrote Clayton in his journal, “is all burned bare, 
and the black ashes fly bad, making the brethren look more like 
Indians than white folks.” The fires also burned the grass and 
destroyed the cattle feed. But, in spite of all such difficulties, 
there was a mystic quality to a journey into the wilderness, which 
was only added to by the difficulties encountered. Among the 
vast sand heaps, the stubby sage-brush, the salt and the saleratus, 
there, if anywhere, men would be impressed with the solemnity, 
or at least the insecurity, and perhaps the terror, of the world. 
And it was a great comfort for the Mormons to feel that a Being, 
with rain at His command to extinguish prairie fires, and with 
bounties in the form of buffalo and other game, was keeping in 
constant touch with their progress. ‘During the night,’ wrote 
William Clayton, “the Lord sent a light shower of rain which has 
put the fire out except in one or two places and made it perfectly 
safe traveling.” 

There was, however, an inescapable, depressing quality to the 
prairies, which was felt by even the most sanguine dispositions. 
There were no roads. The lines of dusty waggons stumbled awk- 
wardly along the faint trail made by previous lumbering waggons, 
and meanwhile coarse and ugly prairie grass had grown in these 
paths of sandy, gray dirt. To the left, to the right, behind and 
in front were the same slight hills, studded with prairie grass and 
sage brush, and stretching, seemingly, in infinite monotony. In 
such an atmosphere a coyote was a relief and a buffalo a miracle. 
Only that type of contemplative seaman so familiar in fiction and 
so rare in life could find grandeur in the limitless redundancy 
of those wearying plains. They were, in fact, very like the sea, 
and most travelers on them, like these who travel the ocean, 
learned to love them only after they had crossed them. Sir 
Richard Burton wrote that opium was indispensable to relieve the 
gloom of his journey on the prairies, which lasted only five days 
and five nights in a stage coach. ‘“‘Nothing, I may remark,” 
Burton wrote of these American prairies, “is more monotonous, 
except perhaps the African and Indian jungle, than those prairie 


EXODUS 221 


tracts, where the circle of which you are the center has but about 
a mile of radius; it is an ocean in which one loses sight of land. 
You see as it were the ends of the earth, and look around in 
vain for some object upon which the eye may rest: it wants the 
sublimity of repose so suggestive in the sandy deserts, and the 
perpetual motion so pleasing in the aspect of the sea.’’° These 
plains were enough to make strong men weep; their almost unerr- 
ing sameness required a placidity for their appreciation which 
most men cannot achieve. The Mormons were placid enough for 
lack of subtle sensibility, but their ambition to arrive at last at 
the Promised Land and to begin to make it fulfil its promise, 
made the agonizingly slow journey a torture. 

Some little relief of beauty broke the desolation. Occasionally 
a grove of cottonwood trees rose up in pleasant decoration of the 
neighboring wilderness, but these, surrounded as they were by 
miles of waste land, were only melancholy reminders of what men 
had left behind to make this heart-breaking journey. Another, 
more lugubrious, item of interest was a grave. Frequently the 
rolling prairies were broken by isolated graves, which added a 
touch of terror to the deepening sense of despair. The Mormons 
stopped to read the inscriptions of those who had not reached 
their destinations, and, either in the spirit of superstition or fatal- 
ism, wished themselves better luck, and prayed to God for it. 

At times the prairies in front of the Mormons grew black with 
buffaloes. These herds sometimes reached fifty thousand head, 
and sometimes even a hundred thousand. They formed a valua- 
ble addition to the Mormon diet, and even supplied the fuel by 
which they were cooked, for wood was scarce, and the fires were” 
made of the chips of buffalo dung. Brigham Young, hating 
waste, prohibited his men from killing any more buffaloes than 
they needed for food. 

As soon as the waggons halted their banging pace for the day, 
the work of feeding and corraling the cattle began, and when 
that was finished the men had to feed and corral themselves. 
Usually the party halted at four o’clock in the afternoon. When 
the work was finished, some men, and especially William Clayton, 
wrote in their diaries, while others sang and talked until eight- 
thirty, when everybody, after prayers, went to bed, for the bugle 
was blown at five o’clock in the morning, and the party started 
again at seven. The evenings on the prairies were sometimes 

5 The City of the Saints, by Sir Richard Burton, p. 22. 


Zed BRIGHAM YOUNG 


varied with games of cards and dice, but Brigham Young ob- 
jected to these iniquities, as well as to other manifestations of 
evil conduct on the part of his pioneers. William Clayton pre- 
served in his journal a sermon Brigham Young delivered at half- 
past ten in the morning on May 29. Instead of starting for the 
day at the usual hour, Brigham Young had the bugle blown 
late, gathered the men around his waggon, and in a vehement, 
angry voice, began: 


“T remarked last Sunday that I had not felt much like preaching 
to the brethren on this mission. This morning I feel like preaching 
a little, and shall take for my text, ‘That as to pursuing our journe 
with this company with the spirit they possess, I am about to revolt 
against it.’ This is the text I feel like preaching on this morning, 
consequently I am in no hurry. . . . Nobody has told me what has 
been going on in the camp, but I have known it all the while. I 
have been watching the movements, its influence, its effects, and I 
know the result if it is not put a stop to. ...I do not mean to 
bow down to the spirit that is in this camp, and which is rankling 
in the bosoms of the brethren, and which will lead to knock downs 
and perhaps to the use of the knife to cut each other’s throats if 
it is not put a stop to. I do not mean to bow down to the spirit 
which causes the brethren to quarrel. 

“When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I hear is some 
of the brethren jawing each other and quarreling because a horse has 
got loose in the night. I have let the brethren dance and fiddle and 
act the nigger night after night to see what they will do, and what 
extremes they would go to, if suffered to go as far as they would. 
I do not love to see it. The brethren say they want a little exercise 
to pass away time in the evenings, but if you can’t tire yourselves 
bad enough with a day’s journey without dancing every night, carry 
your guns on your shoulders and walk, carry your wood to camp 
instead of lounging and lying asleep in your waggons, increasing 
the load until your teams are tired to death and ready to drop to 
the earth. Help your teams over mud holes and bad places instead 
of lounging in your waggons and that will give you exercise enough 
without dancing. Well, they will play cards, they will play checkers, 
they will play dominoes, and if they had the privilege and were where 
they could get whiskey, they would be drunk half their time, and in 
one week they would quarrel, get to high words and draw their 
knives to kill each other. This is what such a course of things would 
lead to. Don’t you know it? Yes. Well, then, why don’t you try 
to put it down? I have played cards once in my life since I became 
a Mormon to see what kind of spirit would attend it, and I was so 


EXODUS 225 


well satisfied, that I would rather see in your hands the dirtiest 
thing you could find on the earth, than a pack of cards. You never 
read of gambling, playing cards, checkers, dominoes, etc., in the 
scriptures, but you do read of men praising the Lord in the dance, 
but who ever read of praising the Lord in a game of cards? 

“If any man had sense enough to play a game at cards, or dance 
a little without wanting to keep it up all the time, but exercise a 
little and then quit it and think no more of it, it would do well 
enough, but you want to keep it up till midnight and every night, 
and all the time. You don’t know how to control your senses. 
Last winter when we had our seasons of recreation in the council 
house, I went forth in the dance frequently, but did my mind run on 
it? No! To be sure, when I was dancing, my mind was on the 
dance, but the moment I stopped in the middle or the end of a tune, 
my mind was engaged in prayer and praise to my Heavenly Father 
and whatever I engage in, my mind is on it while engaged in it, 
Ga the moment I am done with it, my mind is drawn up to my 

od. 

“Joking, nonsense, profane language, trifling conversation and 
loud laughter do not belong to us. Suppose the angels were wit- 
nessing the hoe down the other evening, and listening to the haw 
haws the other evening, would not they be ashamed of it? I am 
ashamed of it. I have not given a joke to any man on this journey 
nor felt like it; neither have I insulted any man’s feelings but I have 
hollowed pretty loud and spoken sharply to the brethren when I 
have seen their awkwardness at coming to camp. . . . Now let every 
man repent of his weakness, of his follies, of his meanness, and every 
kind of wickedness, and stop your swearing and profane language, 
for it is in this camp and I know it, and have known it. I have said 
nothing about it, but I now tell you, if you don’t stop it you shall 
be cursed by the Almighty and_ shall stele away and be 
damned. 

“‘T understand that there are several in this camp who do not 
belong to the Church. I am the man who will stand up for them 
and protect them in all their rights. And they shall not trample 
on our rights nor on the priesthood. They shall reverence and 
acknowledge the name of God and His priesthood, and if they set 
up their head and seek to introduce iniquity into this camp and to 
trample on the priesthood, I swear to them, they shall never go back 
to tell the tale. I will leave them where they will be safe. If they 
want to retreat they can now have the privilege, and any man who 
chooses to go back rather than abide the law of God can now have 
the privilege of doing so before we go any farther. 

“Here are the Elders of Israel, who have the priesthood, who 
have got to preach the Gospel, who have to gather the nations of the 


224 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


earth, who have to build up the kingdom so that the nations can 
come to it, they will stop to dance as niggers. I don’t mean this 
as debasing the negroes by any means. They will hoe down all, 
turn summersets, dance on their knees, and haw, haw, out loud; 
they will play cards, they will play checkers and dominoes, they will 
use profane language, they will swear! . . . If we don’t repent and 
quit our wickedness we will have more hindrances than we have 
had, and worse storms to encounter. I want the brethren to be 
ready for meeting to-morrow at the time appointed, instead of 
rambling off, and hiding in their waggons at play cards, etc. I think 
it will be good for us to have a fast meeting to-morrow and a 
prayer meeting to humble ourselves and turn to the Lord and He 
will forgive us.” ® 


This speech must have been impressive, even if it did not stop 
all future poker games. Uttered in Brigham Young’s sonorous 
voice, which could be hard and biting in tone when he was angry, 
it undoubtedly made his transgressors feel ashamed of themselves 
and afraid of him. After he had finished, he lined up his flock, 
including the high priests, the bishops, the elders, and the seven- 
ties, and asked them to raise their right hands if they were willing 
“to cease from all their evils and serve God according to His 
Laws.’ Every man, of course, held up his right hand. Then 
Heber C. Kimball arose and said the same things in different 
words that Brigham Young had said. Orson Pratt then urged 
the brethren to spend their spare time reading some of the books 
in the camp, the names of which he did not mention. After the 
sermons were finished, Colonel Markham arose before his 
brethren and confessed “that he had done wrong in many things,” - 
that he had played cards and checkers and dominoes. The 
enormity of these sins worried him greatly, for Clayton reports, 
“while he was speaking he was very much affected indeed and 
wept like a child.”” All promised to be better men, and in the 
recklessness of their repentance, some one even suggested burning 
every pack of cards, checker board, and set of dominoes in the 
camp; but it is not recorded that this was done. At half-past one 
in the afternoon the meeting broke up, and the slow journey across 
the plains was resumed. The next day, Sunday, the whole camp 
fasted and prayed. 

It is not strange that the Mormon pioneers should forget their 
religion occasionally during their long, uncomfortable, and dan- 


& William Clayton’s Journal, pp. 189-201. 


EXODUS Dees, 


gerous journey. There were the sun and the dust, which made, 
the men dirty and grimy and hot, for theré was rarely water 
enough for anything but drinking purposes, so that for days ata 
time the travelers could not wash the dirt of the road or of the 
prairie fires from their faces and hands. When they came to a 
river or a stream, the halt was joyously welcomed. William 
Clayton took advantage of the opportunity for a physical and a 
spiritual bath on Sunday morning, May g: 


“We arrived here,” he wrote, “at nine-fifty and shall stay till 
morning. Soon as the camp was formed, I went about three quar- 
ters of a mile below to the river and washed my socks, towel and 
handkerchief as well as I could in cold water without soap. I then 
stripped my clothing off and washed from head to foot, which has 
made me feel much more comfortable for 1 was covered with dust. 
After washing and putting on clean clothing I sat down on the banks 
of the river and gave way to a long train of solemn reflections re- 
specting many things, especially in regard to my family and their 
welfare for time and eternity. I shall not write my thoughts here, 
inasmuch as I expect this journal will have to pass through other 
hands besides my own or that of my family but if I can carry my 
plans into operation, they will be written in a manner that my family 
will each get their portion, whether before my death or after, it 
matters not.” 


\ The Indians did not prove troublesome. The Mormons often 
saw-their tracks but met very few Indians until they got beyond 
the Platte River. This caused Clayton to reflect: “But we are 
satisfied the Lord hears the prayers of his servants and sends 
them out of the way before we come up to them.’ However, the 
Mormons also carried a cannon on wheels, the purpose of which 
was to impress the Indians that they were the chosen people. 
‘Innocent amusement, approved by Brigham Young, was pro- 
\ vided by mock trials and dances, preceded always by prayer. In 

mock trial of The Camp vs. James Davenport, the defendant 
was charged with blockading the highway and turning ladies out 
of their course. Dances were usually held on Saturday nights, 
for the camp did not travel on Sunday unless it was absolutely 
necessary to do so in order to reach water or good grazing 
ground. As there were only three women in camp, the men 
danced with each other. 
Along the route the Mormons set up guide posts and placed 


226 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


letters in them for the Saints who were to follow them later. 
Whitened buffalo bones and skulls were also used for messages, 
and on these the Mormons wrote advice about the roads and the 
streams. The grease for the waggon wheels they obtained from 
- the fat of the wolves they killed for protection. William Clay- 
ton thought of the possibility of a speedometer. It was his job 
to keep a record of the distance covered, and it occurred to him 
that an attachment on a waggon wheel would be more accurate 
and less burdensome than his guesses, based on counting the revo- 
lutions of the wheel all day. He wrote in his journal: “I walked 
some this afternoon in company with Orson Pratt and suggested 
to him the idea of fixing a set of wooden cog wheels to the hub 
of a waggon wheel, in such order as to tell the exact number of 
miles we travel each day. He seemed to agree with me that it 
could be easily done at a trifling expense.’’ Nothing was done 
about Clayton’s idea at first, but finally Brother Appleton Har- 
mon, a mechanic, was set to work making a speedometer after 
William Clayton’s directions, Later William Clayton made this 
entry in his diary: “I discovered that Brother Appleton Harmon 
is trying to have it understood that he invented the machinery 
to tell the distance we travel, which makes me think less of him 
than I formerly did. He is not the inventor of it by a long 
way, but he has made the machinery after being told how to 
do it. What little souls work.” In spite of professional 
jealousies, the instrument was finished and was called the 
“roadometer.”’ 

As soon as the Mormons had crossed the prairies and arrived 
in the foothills of the mountains, their daily life improved in © 
variety and ease. West of the Platte River the dull prairie grass 
was replaced by green clumps of sage brush, growing in the sandy 
hills, and out of these clumps gray sage-hens scurried as the 
rumbling waggons disturbed their solitude. Clear springs and 
streams became more numerous, and the air was perfumed in 
some places with the delicate odor of wild mint. It was June. 
Gradually the gray sand of the trail before them turned to red 
earth, the color of the rocks and bluffs which began to rise 
around them. The red glare of the road and the rocks hurt their 
eyes. They now made better time, averaging fifteen miles each 
day instead of ten. 

Frequently now they met other emigrants on their way to 
Oregon and to California. As much as they enjoyed the sight 


EXODUS COVERT 


of fellow travelers, the Mormons were careful to avoid those 
from Missouri, for Missourians were still their traditional) 
enemies, and Brigham Young preferred to travel ahead a few. 
miles, rather than camp on the same ground with them. <A party” 
of Missourians came to inspect Clayton’s roadometer. “They 
expressed a wish,” he wrote, “to each other to see inside and 
looked upon it as a curiosity. I paid no attention to them inas- 
much as they did not address themselves to me.” The, Mis- 
sourians gave the Mormons information about the route and 
paid them $1.50 per load to ferry their goods across the Platte 
River in the boat of skins, known as the Revenue Cutter, which 
the Mormons had made. Ferrying Missourians yielded so much 
profit in flour that Brigham Young decided to leave a party of 
nine men at the river to continue the work. 

North of the Platte River the Mormons branched off from the 
regular trail. Previously they had followed the route used by 
emigrants who had preceded them to Oregon, and this regular 
trail would have taken them to tne valley of the Great Salt Lake, 
but Brigham Young thought it wiser to blaze a trail to the north, 
so that his people might not be subject to competition for fodder — 
and to conflict with Missouri emigrants. This trail, which Brig= 
ham Young and Heber Kimball established by going ahead each 
day to search out the easiest route, was known for many years 
as the “Old Mormon Road” and was followed by all the Mormon 
emigrants who came after the original pioneers. To-day part of 
- the Union Pacific Railroad runs across it. 

Late in June Brigham Young and his party began to reach 
the high, irregular rock hills. The highest of these, Independence 
Rock, was even at that early date scrawled in black, red, and 
yellow paint with the names and initials of hundreds of men and 
women who had arrived there, climbed the rock and thought it 
important to leave an indelible impression of their lack of taste. 
This was near the Sweet Water River, and the scenery now began 
to take on an imposing, romantic grandeur. The country seemed 
fortified with huge, overhanging hills of burnt sienna, sandy 
rock. Snow and ice were found in some of the mountain pools 
and springs. The mornings became bitingly cold, and during 
the nights drinking water froze in the pails. At the beginning 
of July the mountain fever started, and many of the Mormons 
were stricken with its violent headache, burning temperature, 
and fantastic delirium. On July 12 Brigham Young was af- 


228 | BRIGHAM YOUNG 


flicted with mountain fever, and in the evening of that day he 
was raving in a mad delirium. Mosquitoes in huge armies made 
the cattle restless and the men frantic. 

Near Green River and Bear River members of the Mormon 
Battalion met their brethren, and Elder Samuel Brannan ar- 
rived from California to consult with Brigham Young. On the 
day in February, 1846, when the Mormons left Nauvoo, the 
ship Brooklyn, carrying 238 Saints left New York to travel 
around Cape Horn to California, where it was assumed their 
brethren would join them. ‘This expedition was in charge of 
Elder Samuel Brannan, who combined great enthusiasm with 
some ability and very little principle. On the long sea journey 
four leading men of the party were excommunicated by Brannan 
for crimes which he later described as “‘wicked and licentious con- 
duct.” Two children were born on the ship, and they were 
named Atlantic and Pacific, respectively; Atlantic was a boy, born 
before the Brooklyn had rounded the Horn, and Pacific was a 
girl, born after the ship had passed the Cape. Elder Brannan 
settled the Mormons under his charge in a location near the pres- 
ent city of San Francisco, and then he proceeded overland to meet 
Brigham Young. By this time Brigham Young had heard a 
great deal about the valley of the Great Salt Lake, which he had 
made up his mind might be the most suitable place for his settle- 
ment. Brannan urged strenuously that the Mormons should not 
stop at the Salt Lake Valley, which, he assured them, was deso- 
late and would never bear grain. He insisted that the Saints 
must come on to California, where the climate was incomparable | 
and the soil of an amazing fertility. One could grow anything, 
could accomplish anything in California, he argued. But Brig- 
ham Young quietly laughed at his enthusiasm and refused to act 
upon it, for he felt that to take his people to California, where 
living was easy, would be to subject them, sooner or later, to 
association with competitive neighbors, who would adopt even- — 
tually the same attitude of opposition that had made it impossible 
for them to live in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois; and from Cali- 
fornia they could only move west into the sea. The valley of the 
Great Salt Lake was irresistibly attractive to a man of Brigham 
Young’s foresight: it was, to his mind, by reason of its lack of 
attraction for those who wished to get rich quickly, the very place 
to build up a powerful, isolated community, which would grow 


EXODUS 229 


without molestation until it was powerful enough to resist it. If 
the land was at all fertile, he realized that it was the place for his 
Mormons. 

Sam Brannan became disgusted with Brigham Young’s lack 
of interest in the California climate and the California soil. He 
made up his mind that Brigham Young was pig-headed, and he 
returned himself to California, where he appears often in the 
pages of the history of that state. It is said that when Brannan 
came into San Francisco Bay with his party of Mormons, the 
American flag was floating over the Presidio, which had recently 
been captured from the Mexicans. Eyewitnesses reported that 
Brannan threw his hat on the deck of the Brooklyn in disgust, 
and shouted, “There’s that damned rag again.” He had sailed 
thousands of miles only to run into what he had planned to 
avoid. But he soon adapted himself to the disappointment, and 
made the best of his opportunities in a sparsely settled com- 
munity. In January, 1847, he established a newspaper, known 
as the Yerba Buena California Star; San Francisco was then 
called Yerba Buena. Many of his party of Mormons remained 
in California with Brannan, and he collected tithes from them 
regularly for the Church, but Brigham Young never received any 
of the money. This led ultimately to Brannan’s resignation from 
the Mormon Church, After the discovery of gold in California, 
Sam Brannan was one of the first to hear about it. He then had 
a store at Sutter’s Fort, where gold was first found. Brannan’s 
enthusiasm overran his discretion, and he rode on horseback 
through California communities, carrying with him gold dust 
and nuggets, and shouting to the startled inhabitants, “Gold! 
Gold! Gold from the American River!’ He, more than any 
one man, spread the interest in California gold which was so soon 
to assume the proportions of a mania. 

As his party neared the valley of the Great Salt Lake Brigham 
Young’s interest in it grew. He had read about it:in Colonel 
Frémont’s reports of his explorations; Father De Smet, the 
famous French missionary traveler among the Indians, had met 
Brigham Young at Winter Quarters, and they had held long 
conversations, during which Father De Smet described to Brig- 
ham Young this strange valley, with its stranger lake. It is clear, 
however, that Brigham Young had only a vague idea of his 
ultimate destination and an instinctive feeling that Salt Lake 


230 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


valley was the right place. In a sermon he delivered in 1857, 
when he was fighting the United States government, Brigham 
Young said: 


“When I was written to in Nauvoo by the President of the United 
States, through another person, enquiring, “Where are you going, 
Mr. Young?’ I replied that I did not know where we should land. 
We had men in England trying to negotiate for Vancouver’s Island, 
and we sent a ship-load round Cape Horn to California. Men in 
authority asked, ‘Where are you going to?’ “We may go to Cali- 
fornia, or to Vancouver’s Island.’ When the Pioneer company 
reached Green River, we met Samuel Brannan and a few others 
from California, and they wanted us to go there. I remarked, 
‘Let us go to California, and we cannot stay there over five years; 
but let us stay in the mountains, and we can raise our own pota- 
toes, and eat them; and I calculate to stay here.’ We are still on 
the backbone of the animal, where the bone and the sinew are, and 
we intend to stay here, and all hell cannot help themselves.” 7 


Whenever Brigham Young was asked by one of the pioneer 
“party where they were going, he remarked that he would recognize 
the site of their new home when he saw it, and that they would 
continue as the Lord directed them. Near South Pass, the divid- 
ing point of the waters which run into the Pacific Ocean, and 
those which flow east into the Atlantic, Brigham Young met T. L. 
Smith, a trapper and explorer, better known as “Pegleg” Smith. 
He had explored Salt Lake in August, 1826, and he advised 
Brigham Young to settle slightly farther west in Cache Valley, 
Utah. He also offered to meet them two weeks later and guide 
the Mormon emigrants there, but for some reason he did not keep 
his appointment, and Erastus Snow was sure that God had His 
mind set on Salt Lake Valley, that “Pegleg’’ Smith’s failure to 
arrive was “‘a providence of an all-wise God.’’ Near South Pass 
Brigham Young also talked with Jim Bridger, the famous trapper 
and trader, who had also explored Salt Lake. He tried to dis- 
courage Brigham Young from settling there, and he offered him 
$1,000 for the first bushel of wheat or ear of corn grown in that 
great salt basin. 

The roads now became mountain passes; the noise of the heavy 
waggon wheels was given back in a sharp echo, like the sound 
of hundreds of carpenters hammering their planks against the 


7 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 230-231. 


NIVYL INVYOINY NOWYOP 








EXODUS 231 


sides of rocky mountains. Rifle shots resounded with cracks, 
and the lowing of the cattle and the braying of the mules were 
answered in uncanny mockery by the surrounding hills, The 
Mormon band played music, every note of which was echoed - 
weirdly. During the nights the mules were disturbed in their 
sleep by the answers to their own noises. The waggons ascended 
hilly passes, overhung by huge, irregular, red, dusty rocks which 
took on dream shapes, or descended into cafions surrounded by 
different, but no less weird, red rocks. 

Brigham Young became very ill with mountain fever. It 
was necessary for him to halt his waggon and remain behind with 
a few men to care for him, while Parley Pratt led an advance 
party into the valley of the Great Salt Lake, which they were 
now approaching, but which he had not yet seen. It looked very 
much for a time as if his career might terminate with the last, 
fatal parallel with that of Moses, as if he were to see the Promised 
Land, but never enter it. When the advance party came to his 
waggon to get last instructions, Brigham Young rested his elbow 
on his pillow and, with difficulty, sat up to talk to them. “My 
impressions are,” he said, “that when you emerge from the moun- 
tains into the open country, you bear to the northward and stop 
at the first convenient place for putting in your seeds.” He did 
not say whether this impression was based on a revelation of God 
or the map of Colonel Frémont. 

On Saturday, the 24th of July, 1847, Brigham Young drove 
in Wilford Woodruff’s carriage into the open valley of the 
Great Salt Lake. Still weak from mountain fever, he was lying 
on a bed in the carriage. “When we came out of the cafion into 
full view of the valley,” Wilford Woodruff recorded, “I turned 
the side of my carriage around, open to the west, and President 
Young arose from his bed and took a survey of the country. 
While gazing on the scene before us, he was enwrapped in vision’ 
for several minutes. He had seen the valley before in vision, 
and upon this occasion he saw the future glory of Zion and of 
Israel, as they would be, planted in the valleys of these moun- 
tains.”” But all he said was, “It is enough. This is the right 
place. Drive on.’ * 

The scene which lay before Brigham Young’s heavy, tired 
eyes was of a quality to inspire visions, for it is one of the most 
impressive sights on the American continent. As Sir Richard 

8 The Utah Pioneers, p. 23. 


232 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Burton said of this view, “Switzerland and Italy lay side by. 
side.” Beneath was a great plain, stretching almost as far as 
the eye could see, surrounded on all sides by a spacious semi- 
circle of sun-burned, snow-capped mountains. In the far distance 
was a hazy expanse of salt water, glistening an invitation in the 
sunlight. The air was soft, clear, and had a faint, sweet, virgin 
odor. The plain was studded with low, brown and red, bare 
hills; a gray desert, with alkaline sinks extended in one direction, 
and stretches of burning red sandstone wandered off into another 
place. To his left were green trees hiding themselves in the 
cafions, as if fearful to come out into such a waste land. Azure, 
purple, and silver of sky and mountains overhung the gleaming 
turquoise of the lake. And there was not a building, not a sign 
of man, to break the fearful charm of virgin solitude. 

It was impossible that, catching a glimpse of this sight from 
the plateau which overlooked it, the Mormons should regard it 
as anything but the Promised Land. After their dreary journey 
of one hundred and two days from the Missouri River, crossing 
prairies, climbing mountains, fording troublesome, treacherous, 
depressingly dirty rivers, this was a promise of paradise, and it 
occurred to them that none but God had fulfilled it. Brigham 
Young, far from jealous, encouraged that attitude. When Gen- 
eral Garfield asked him how he happened to choose Salt Lake 
valley, Brigham Young answered: “Why, we were traveling) 
‘along, and I was lying in a wagon, and all of a sudden I called 
out, ‘Halt! the Lord says “stop here” ’; and there on that hill 
(pointing to one) an angel of the Lord stood, and pointed down 
_this valley, and said, ‘Stay there.’ ”’ Brigham Young had made- 
~ good the boast of his Church biographer that “‘he was ‘every inch’ 
the Moses of the last days.’’ He did better, for he was granted 
the privilege not only of leading his people out of the land of 
Egypt and out of the house of bondage, but, like Joshua, he also 
ruled them in the Promised Land for many years. 

As the Mormons rode into the valley from the flat tableland 
from which Brigham Young got his first view of it, their 
romantic sentiments changed to practical considerations, and a 
“bitter tinge of disappointment seized them. Their new home, 
' when they came to examine it closely, proved to be sandy and 
| absolutely nude of timber, except for that in the cafions some 
' miles away. The only plant that seemed able to survive the salt 
_ and drought, was the tall, careless sunflower, and even its yellow. 


EXODUS 233 


face was covered with parasitical, black and brown crickets. The 
potentialities of this stubborn looking soil worried them dread- 
fully. On the first day, before he took his dinner, Wilford Wood- 
ruff hurried to plant the half bushel of potatoes he had brought 
with him. The air seemed ominously hot, and the dry ground 
gave indication of chronic lack of rain. But that first night some- 
thing of a minor miracle occurred. It rained,,and as rain in that 
valley in July was notoriously rare, the Saints took this as a 
comforting assurance of special dispensation in their favor. But 
their melancholy did not disappear. From the point of view of 
the valley the mountains above and around seemed rugged and. 
forbidding, and the lack of anything green brought memories of 
verdant Illinois. Under foot was still the maddening sage brush,) 
the eternal, haunting companion of their dismal journey. The 
three women, overcome with a sense of wretchedness, desolation, 
and loneliness, and that first feeling of despair at unfamiliar, for- 
eign sights, broke down and wept. 

But the people did not have much time for melancholy. On 
the same day of their arrival in the valley the men began to plow 
the land and to plant their seed. The blacksmith set up his forge 
and began to repair the plows and other farm machinery. Some 
of the men set out on exploring parties into the surrounding , 
country, and they were filled with joy at varieties of surprises in 
the nature of hot springs, mountain streams of sweet, cold water, : 
and cafions covered with green trees. The Indians came into 
camp and proved friendly, trading buckskins and ponies for 
powder and muskets. 

After he had been in the valley four days, Brigham Young 
recovered from his illness and was able to ride about the country 
inacarriage. He was satisfied that this valley was the ideal home’ 

‘for his people, and the very desolation and loneliness which de- 
pressed so much his wife and his sister-in-law impressed him. 
ass the advantages of isolation. As soon as he had looked 
about, Brigham Young addressed his followers, and he told them 
that their present camp was the ideal site for their future city. 
“He said,” wrote Clayton, “they intended to divide the city into 
blocks of ten acres each with eight lots in a block of one and 
a quarter acres each. The streets to be wide. No house will 
be permitted to be built on the corners of the streets, neither 
petty shops. Each house will have to be built so many feet 
back from the street and all the houses parallel with each other. 


234- BRIGHAM YOUNG 


‘The fronts are to be beautified with fruit trees, etc. No filth 
will be allowed to stand in the city but the water will be conducted 
through in such a manner as to carry all the filth off to the River 
Jordan. No man will be suffered to cut up his lot and sell a 
part to speculate out of his brethren. Each man must keep his 
lot whole, for the Lord has given it to us without price. The 
temple lot will be forty acres and adorned with trees, ponds, 
etc.’ These plans were carried out almost exactly in every 
detail as Brigham Young formulated them that day, although 
some of his brethren must have been extremely doubtful of the 
possibility of carrying such a vision into execution in such a 
barren land. Brigham Young set the men to work immediately 
building a road to the mountains, to be used for hauling timber, 
and as soon as they got the timber, he superintended the building 
. of a stockade as a precaution against the Indians, and a boat to 
be used on the one-hundred-mile lake of salt water that glistened 
in the distance. 

Before the beginning of August the Saints had built a bowery 
for their Sunday services, and Brigham Young had selected the 
site for the Temple and several sites for himself and his asso- 
ciates. He chose for himself a square block near the proposed 
Temple. Realizing the scarcity of timber, the Saints built houses 
of adobes, sun- -burned clay bricks. 

Meanwhile, a new party of Saints had left Winter Quarters \ 
and was en route to Salt Lake. Brigham Young made prepara= 
tions to return to Winter Quarters for the purpose of leading the 
rest of his people to their new home. First, however, he laid 
the foundations himself of four adobe houses, which he wished 
for his family and business use. On August 26, after blessing 
his pioneers, Brigham Young left them in the new city, and 
accompanied by several of his leading associates and the mem- 
bers of the Mormon Battalion who were anxious to return to 
Winter Quarters and bring their families back to the valley, he 
started on the return journey. 

The main characteristic of this journey was the scarcity of 
\food, and the grumbling of the men on that account. Their 
breadstuffs were exhausted, and they were compelled to live 
almost entirely on the buffaloes they could kill en route. Clayton 
wrote: “John Pack has got flour enough to last him through. 
We have all messed together until ours was eaten, and now 
John Pack proposes for each man to mess by himself. He has 


EXODUS 235 


concealed his flour and beans together with tea, coffee, sugar, 
etc., and cooks after the rest have gone to bed. Such things 
seem worthy of remembrance for a time to come.” * Some of 
those who killed buffaloes kept the meat and tallow and refused 
to share with their less lucky companions. Dissension was rife 
in the small group with which Clayton was traveling ahead: 
“Young Babcock shook his fist in Zebedee :Coltrin’s face and 
damned him and said he could whip him.” Brigham Young had 
warned these men not to travel ahead, but his advice had been 
disregarded. Clayton records that the small party met some 
Indians, who bullied the Mormons, took some horses, oxen, 
knives, and a sack of salt, ‘and we concluded,” wrote Clayton, 
“to turn about and go back to the company. . . . After travel- 
ing back about six miles, we met the company, told the story, 
and bore their slang and insults without saying much, but not 
without thinking a great deal.”’ After a journey of nine weeks 
and three days, they arrived back at Winter Quarters. At the 
command of Brigham Young Clayton had supervised a new 
roadometer, and the registered distance from Florence, Nebraska, 
Winter Quarters, to the new site of Salt Lake City was 1,031 
miles. About halfway, Brigham Young had met the two thou- 
sand Mormons who were en route to the valley; he had dinner 
with them, told them the nature of their new home, and left 
them. This second party arrived in the valley in good health, 
only seven people, three of them infants, having died en route. 
Brigham Young arrived back at Winter Quarters on October 
31, 1847. He spent the winter there, planning for the emigra- 
tion of his people the following spring. At Winter Quarters 
there was a small log cabin in the center of the settlement, the 
walls of which were covered with turf two feet thick. The 
windows were in the roof, and no one could look in or hear 
_-what was being said inside. Into this council chamber Brighatim 
~ Young called his Apostles about a month after his return and | 
_ suggested that it was time for him to be elected President of | 
the Church. As yet he was only President of the Twelve | 
~Apostles. Several of the Apostles suggested that since, accord= 
ing to Brigham Young, the succession to the supreme leadership 
rested with the Twelve Apostles, it was not necessary to elect a 
President of the Church, who would also become “Prophet, Seer, 
and Revelator,’ in succession to Joseph Smith. But Brigham 
9 William Clayton’s Journal, pp. 361-362. 


236 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Young insisted that his position as President of the Twelve 
Apostles was not sufficient authority or sufficient security, and 
he finally won his followers to submission. There was nothing 
for them to do but submit, for to take the question before the 
people in open assembly would produce a disrupting wrangle, 
from which everybody would suffer and nobody would benefit. 
Besides, they needed the guiding genius of Brigham Young now 
more than ever, for their new settlement had been selected, not 
developed. The appointment was ratified, and then taken before 
the people for their approval, At the public voting, it has been 
claimed, the Apostles all raised their hands first, and the faithful 
brethren followed their leaders. | 

By the end of May, 1848, Brigham Young had organized his 
second exodus, which consisted this time of 2,417 men, women, 
and children. There were also in the party pigs, chickens, cats, 
dogs, goats, geese, doves, ducks, five beehives, and a squirrel, as 
well as the many horses, oxen, and mules used to pull the 
waggons. Ina sermon Brigham Young once described the mis- 
cellaneous character of the Mormons’ possessions and animals: 


“We had to bring our seed grain, our farming utensils, bureaus, 
secretaries, sideboards, sofas, pianos, large looking glasses, fine 
chairs, carpets, nice shovels and tongs, and other fine furniture, with 
all the parlor, cook stoves, etc.; and we had to bring these things 
piled together with the women and children, helter skelter, topsy 
turvy, with broken down horses, ring-boned, spavined, pole evil, 
fistula and hipped; oxen with three legs, and cows with one tit. 
This was our only means of transportation, and if we had not 
brought our goods in this manner we should not have had them, for 
there was nothing here.” ?° 


The second Brigham Young party arrived without unusual 
hardship in their new home on September 20, 1848. Brigham 
Young was escorted into the new city by those he had left in 
charge and those who had followed. A hymn of welcome, com- 
posed especially for the occasion by Eliza Snow, was sung in 
the Bowery. There were now four hundred and fifty houses of 
adobes and logs, three saw mills, and a flour mill in the new 
city. Those who returned from Winter Quarters with Brigham 
Young were all satisfied with the activities of their brethren, all 
except Bill Hickman, who wrote in his book of confessions : 


10 Journal of Discourses, vol. 12, p. 287. 


EXODUS 237 


“T had in the Winter just previous to leaving Nauvoo, taken me 
a second wife, whose father was going with this Company, and she 
wanted to go with them. I sent her along, and when I reached Salt 
Lake next year, was not surprised to find she had helped herself to 
a youngster a few days old. Believing her virtue to be easy going 
before this let me off. I never had any children by her.” + 


11 Brigham’s Destroying Angel, p. 48. 


Chapter VI 


SINAI 


I 


Tuose Mormons who remained in the valley of the Great Salt 
Lake during the winter of 1847, while Brigham Young was pre- 
paring his followers for the second exodus, endured a winter of 
great difficulties. They had arrived late in July, and it was im- 
possible to get much from the soil that year because of lack of 
‘water. Their vegetables were almost exhausted, and the food 
situation became so serious that a pound of gold was offered for 
a pound of flour, and the owner refused to sell. Lorenzo D. 
Young, Brigham’s brother, traded some oxen for a steer, and 
after all the meat was eaten’ by his family, he cut the hide into 
strips, soaked these in the creek, scraped off all the hair, and 
turned them over to Mrs. Young, who boiled them into a glue 
soup, to which she added salt and served. Even the fine set of 
china which she brought out to use for this soup did not alto- 
gether succeed in making it palatable. From the Indians the new 
settlers learned how to use the roots and herbs of plants which 
grew along the river that Brigham Young and his associates had 
decided to call the River Jordan. But the community did not 
despair. They succeeded in remaining industrious, planting 
spring crops, building several saw mills and grist mills, fencing 
in twelve miles of farming land, and giving birth to one hundred 
and twenty babies. One of these children, born early in August, 
1847, to John and Catherine Steel was named Young Elizabeth 
Steel, after Brigham Young and Queen Elizabeth, of England. 

When Brigham Young returned to the new settlement, to re- 
main there for the rest of his life, he was satisfied with the 
labors of his flock. He recalled to them the prophecy of Isaiah: 
“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; 
_and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.’’ Mean- 
while, the efforts to make this prophecy come true became neces- 
sarily greater, for the arrival of two thousand additional Saints 


SINAI 2a9 


made food scarcer for every one. Some of the new arrivals 
lived for three months on the cattle that had carried them across 
the prairies and the mountains. Clothes began to wear out, and 
farming implements soon needed repair and replacement. Tea | 
and coffee disappeared entirely from the. diet, not because of the 
ban against them, but because they were unobtainable, for the | 
nearest shop was a thousand miles away. At the height of this ~ 
scarcity of all things material Heber Kimball arose in the pulpit 
and announced a prophecy he had just received. He predicted 
that in a short time the Saints would be able to buy everything 
they needed in the valley cheaper than they could buy the equiva- 
lent articles in the States. Many of the Saints did not believe 
him, and they felt that it would be a miracle indeed if this 
prophecy should be fulfilled. It redounded very much to his 
credit, and to that of God, when, less than a year later, his miracle 
began to be consummated in an unexpected manner. 

Brigham Young decided that at first a large common farm 
would be of greater advantage to both individuals and the com- 
munity than separate farms, and he urged this cooperative enter- 
prise to prevent starvation. This was the first step in the execu- 
tion of his general economic policy; he always preferred co- 
_ operative work to individual speculation, and so far as he was 
able, he refused to allow the rise in land values due to community 
development to be appropriated as unearned increment by indi- 
vidual owners. One enterprise particularly he safeguarded care- 
fully from monopoly. The land of Utah was valueless without 
- irrigation, and many urged that a large private company should 
irrigate the entire territory and charge for the use of water. 
Brigham Young wisely insisted that every farmer should build 
his own furrows and canals. The result was that no one owned 
the indispensable water supply, and the farmers paid tribute to no 
one. Those parts of the irrigation system which required greater 
labor than individuals or families could perform were built co- 
operatively by groups of farmers and their families. Irrigation\ 
was one of the great triumphs of the Mormons over their en- | 
vironment, and was developed largely by their own ingenuity;) 
their efforts were the first large-scale irrigation projects in the / 
United States. So grateful are they to the value of this process 
that in recent years a Mormon organist wrote and composed a 
song known as the “Irrigation Ode.” 

Among the other dangers and difficulties of life in the valley 


240 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


were the wild animals. Wolves, foxes, and catamounts prowled 
about the adobe houses, and, after he had spread strychnine one 
night about his doorstep, Lorenzo Young said he found fourteen 
dead white wolves lying there next morning. There were also 
swarms of mice, who found it easy to cut cavities in the shelters 
of logs and clay. It was sometimes necessary to catch fifty or 
sixty of them in an evening before the family could go to 
sleep. There were only a few cats in the community, and one 
device for destroying mice was the ingenious arrangement of a 
bucket of water, with a greased sloping board at each end, down 
which the mice slid to death by drowning. Another great irrita- 
tion were the thousands of bedbugs, who lived in the fresh, green 
mountain timber and remained after their homes were trans- 
formed into log cabins. | 

_ These annoyances, however, were of minor importance com- 
‘ pared with the plague of grasshoppers and crickets. When the 
“Mormons arrived, they found the land covered with destructive 
crickets, and equally destructive grasshoppers soon swarmed in 
clouds all over the territory of Utah. “Often they fill the air for 
many miles of extent,’’ wrote Lieutenant Warren in his govern- 
ment report, “so that an inexperienced eye can scarcely distin- 
guish their appearance from that of a shower of rain or the 
smoke of a prairie fire. To a person standing in one of these 
swarms as they pass over and around him, the air becomes sen- 
sibly darkened, and the sound produced by their wings resembles 
that of the passage of a train of cars on a railroad when stand- 
ing two or three hundred yards from the track. The Mormon . 
settlements have suffered more from the ravages of these insects 
than probably all other causes combined.”’ ? 

Brigham Young once expressed greater fear of grasshoppers 
and crickets than the enemies of the Mormons in Missouri and 
Illinois; ‘“‘the crickets and the grasshoppers,” he said, “are the 
“greatest plague, for we can hit men, but when you hit one cricket 
or grasshopper, the air is at once alive with them, and if you 
kill one, two come to bury him.” The insects alighted in the 
fields on the heads of wheat stalks, and the crops were quickly 
destroyed. Sometimes, however, they made a fortunate error, 
which Brigham Young described in a letter: “Myriads of grass- 
hoppers, like snowflakes in a storm, occasionally fill the air over 


1 Reports of Secretary of War. Reports of Lieutenant Gouverneur K. 
Warren, U. S. Topographical Engineers, 1855, 1856, 1857. 


SINAT 241 


the city, as far as the eye can reach, and they are liable to alight 
wherever they can distinguish good feed. A great portion of 
them, however, alight in the Great Salt Lake, which appears 
green at a distance, and the shore is lined with their dead, from 
one inch to two feet thick, and which smell exactly like fish.” 
Another observer described the crickets as ‘‘wingless, dumpy, 
black, swollen-headed, with bulging eyes in cases like goggles, 
mounted upon legs of steel wire and clock spring, and with a 
general personal appearance that justified the Mormons in com- 
paring them to a cross of a spider and the buffalo.” 

The men, women, and children of the settlement organized into 
squads, armed with willow bush brooms, with which they at- 
tempted to sweep the armies of crickets and grasshoppers into 
the creeks, where coffee sacks were placed, which were buried in 
trenches as soon as they were full. But this was slow and labori- 
ous battle. Suddenly, as the Mormons were beginning to despair 
of saving any of their crops, flocks of beautiful white, glossy 
gulls, with bright red beaks and feet, and looking like doves in 
form and motion, swept down gracefully upon the valley. At 
first the Mormons, looking up at the sky in anxious bewilder- 
ment, considered this another torment for their unknown trans- 
gressions, but soon they noticed that the gulls began to eat the 
crickets as rapidly as they could swallow them. At early dawn 
they came each day from the islands of Great Salt Lake and 
feasted all day long. When they became stuffed to the red beaks 
with this food, which they seemed never to get enough of, like 
Roman nobles at their saturnalia, they disgorged themselves and 
returned to the feast immediately. 

The Mormons came to the conclusion that this was the great- 
est miracle of all they had yet witnessed, and they eased their 
troubled minds with the consolation that God was still watching 
over them with curious care. But, if it was a miracle, it was 
one which God fortunately repeated with seasonal periodicity ;_ 
during the next ten years the crickets and grasshoppers several | 

\times damaged the crops, and several times the gulls saved them_ ) 
from utter destruction; the gulls even arrived sometimes when | 
the grasshoppers and crickets had forgotten to come. 

Another miracle took place during the famine of 1856, when 
food was so scarce that Brigham Young’s large family, and every 
family in the community, were on short rations. One of the 
brethren who needed bread asked Heber Kimball’s advice how to 


242 _ BRIGHAM YOUNG 


get it. “Go and marry a wife,” was Brother Heber’s terse reply, 
which was accompanied with a few charitable measures of flour. 
for immediate wants. ‘Thunderstruck at receiving such an an- 
swer,” wrote Heber Kimball’s church biographer, “at such a 
time, when he could hardly provide food for himself, the man 
went his way, dazed and bewildered, thinking that President Kim- 
ball must be out of his mind. But the more he thought of the 
prophetic character and calling of the one who had given him 
this strange advice, the less he felt like ignoring it. Finally he 
resolved to obey counsel, let the consequences be what they might. 
But where was the woman who would marry him? was the next 
problem. Bethinking himself of a widow with several children, 
who he thought might be induced to share her lot with him, he 
mustered up courage, proposed and was accepted.” ? And fortu- 
nately the widow had a lot, and a house, and six months’ store of 
provisions. 

It was difficult during the hardships of this first ten years of 
the pioneer existence of the Mormon community to prevent some 
of the less scrupulous and the more shiftless from appropriating 
the fruits of industry of their more fortunate and industrious 
brethren. Wood disappeared from carefully constructed wood- 
piles, and even Brigham Young’s supply was not safe, according 
to one of his angry sermons. ‘Timber was so far away that some 
men believed it was much easier to take it than to cut it, and flour 
was harder to grow than to steal. Brigham Young was reticent 
about his own losses and proud of his ability to prevent them. 
“T have never been troubled with thieves stealing my property,” 
he once said in a sermon. “If I am not smart enough to take 
care of what the Lord lends me, I am smart enough to hold my 
tongue about it, until I come across the thief myself, and then I 
am ready to tie a string around his neck.” ® 

' The punishment Brigham Young advocated for stealing was 
drastic : 


“Tf you want to know what to do with a thief that you may find 
stealing, J say kill him on the spot, and never suffer him to commit 
another iniquity. That is what I expect I shall do, though never, 

in the days of my life, have I hurt a man with the palm of my 


2 Life of Heber C. Kimball, by Orson F. Whitney, pp. 415-416. 
8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 255. 


SINAI 243 


hand. I never have hurt any person any other way except with 
this unruly member, my tongue. Notwithstanding this, if I caught 
a man stealing on my premises I should be very apt to send him 
straight home, and that is what I wish every man to do, to put a 
stop to that abominable practice in the midst of this people. 

“TI know this appears hard, and throws a cold chill over your 
revered traditions received by early education. I had a great many 
such feelings to contend with myself, and was as much of a sec- 
tarian in my notions as any other man, and as mild, perhaps, in my 
natural disposition, but I have trained myself to measure things by 
the line of justice, to estimate them by the rule of equity and truth, 
and not by the false tradition of the fathers, or the sympathies of 
the natural mind. If you will cause all those whom you know to 
be thieves, to be placed in a line before the mouth of one of our 
largest cannon, well loaded with chain shot, I will prove by my 
works whether I can mete out justice to such persons or not. I 
would consider it just as much my duty to do that, as to baptize a 
man for the remission of his sins. That is a short discourse on 
thieves, I acknowledge, but I tell you the truth as it is in my heart.” * 


1 A 


A correspondent wrote Brigham Young asking for frank an- 
swers to questions concerning life in Utah so that he might know 
whether he and one hundred associates would care to emigrate. 
One of his questions was, “Are you annoyed seriously by the 
Indians?” Brigham Young answered: ‘We do not permit any- 
thing to seriously annoy us; ’tis true the Indians steal our horses, 
kill our cattle, sometimes disturb the quiet of some of our settle- 
ments for a season, and we are compelled for our safety to keep 
a good lookout, and sometimes chastise them a little; but our 
quiet, peace, and security is so much greater here than it was in 
the States, that we feel grateful to our heavenly father for the 
exchange of neighbors.”’ 

It was true that the Indians proved far better neighbors than 
any the Mormons had yet encountered, but this was due largely 
to Brigham Young’s policy towards them. It was one of his 

_ most earnest convictions that it was cheaper, as well as more 
\ humane, to feed the Indians than to fight them, and he urged 


\ his followers to teach their brethren, who were after all THs 
NG 
4 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp. 108-109. 


244 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


direct descendants of the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon, the 
cultivation of the soil, and to make them presents of food and 
tobacco. “He did not, however, consider it wise to pamper them, 
or to allow them to become too familiar. His whole Indian 
policy is summed up admirably in a sermon he delivered before 
the conference of the Church on April 6, 1854: 


“T want to say a few words on Indian character. When one tribe 
of Indians are at war with another, if a few sally out and kill a 
warrior of the opposite party, that tribe will watch their opportunity, 
and perhaps go and kill men, women, and children of the other tribe. 
They do not care whom they kill, if they can kill any of the tribe. 
This has been taught them from age to age. The inhabitants of the 
United States have treated the Indians in like manner. If but one 
person or only a few were guilty of committing a depredation upon 
a white settlement, they have chastised the whole tribe for the crime, 
and would perhaps kill those who would fight and die for them. . . . 

“As I have done all the time, I tell you again to-day, I will not 
consent to your killing one Indian for the sin of another. If any 
of them commit a depredation, tell the tribe to which they belong 
that they may deliver up the man or men to be tried according to 
law, and you will make friends of the whole tribe. They have men 
among them they would be glad to have despatched. For instance, 
there is a man at Utah called Squash-head: it is said he has made 
his boast of taking father Lemon’s child and killing it. We know 
the other Indians wish he was dead: they do not like to kill him, 
for fear of their own lives. They would like to have that man tried 
and hung up for the murder of that child... . 

“T have fed fifty Indians almost day by day for months together. 
I always give them something, but I never forget to treat them 
like Indians; and they are always mannerly and kind, and look 
upon me as their superior. Never let them come into your houses, 
as the whites did in Utah [County]. There they would let them 
lounge upon their beds, until finally they would quarrel and become 
angry, if the women would not let them lounge upon their beds. 
Great, big, athletic fellows would want to go into the wickeups of 
the ‘Mormons,’ and lounge upon their beds, and sit on their tables 
and on their chairs, and make as free as though they belonged to 
the family. When their familiarities became oppressive to the 
whites, and they desired them to leave their houses, it made them 
angry, and I knew it would. This is the true cause of the Indian 
difficulties in Utah.’ ® 

Frequently the Indians visited the Mormon settlements and 


5 Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, pp. 328-3209. 


SINAI 245 


offered Indian boys and girls for sale. At first the Mormons re- 
fused to buy, but the Indians insisted that they intended to kill 
all unpurchased children, and when this threat was several times 
carried out with cold determination, Brigham Young advised his 
people to buy any Indian children who could only be saved in 
that way, so that the Mormons might help the Indians to become 
the ‘white and delightsome people” the Book of Mormon said 
they were destined to become eventually. Another method some 
Mormons had of making the Indians “white and delightsome” 
was by breeding with them. Some Mormons considered it their 
duty to take unto themselves dark-eyed Indian squaws—purely 
for the sake of the future of the Lamanites. 

Although he trusted in God to convert the Indians, as pre- 
dicted in the Book of Mormon, and had faith in the gratitude of 
the Indians for good treatment, Brigham Young believed also 
in taking all precautions against the failure of these assurances. 
He urged that every Mormon settlement in the outlying districts 
of Utah build a fort to protect its people, before any other 
structure was built, and he superintended the building of the fort 
in Salt Lake City. “I have always acknowledged myself a 
coward,” he said once, “and hope I always may be, to make me 
cautious enough to preserve myself and my brethren from falling 
_ ignobly by a band of Indians. . . . I do not repose confidence in 
persons, only as they prove themselves confidential; and I shall 
live a long while before I can believe that an Indian is my 
friend, when it would be to his advantage to be my enemy.” 
Sometimes the Mormons disliked the labor of building a stock- 
ade when all around them seemed so peaceful, and there was so 
much other work to be done. Brigham Young continually 
pointed out in his sermons the danger of this criminal negligence, 
and on one occasion he addressed himself exclusively to their 
wives: “If they want to drag you off to some place where you 
will be exposed to the ravages of Indians, tell them you are going 
to stay where you are, and then ask them what they are going 
to do about it. It is not my general practice to counsel the sisters 
to disobey their husbands, but my counsel is—obey your hus- 
bands; and I am sanguine and most emphatic on that subject. 
But I never counseled a woman to follow her husband to the 
devil. Ifa man is determined to expose the lives of his friends, 
let that man go to the devil and to destruction alone.” ° 

6 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 77. 


246 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


There was one Indian chief who proved troublesome at times, 
who was often worth conciliating, but who was above all pic- 
turesque. He went by the Anglo-Saxon name of Walker. He 
spoke English and Spanish, as well as the Ute dialects, was an 
excellent shot, a good judge of horse flesh, and particularly 
gifted in the art of pantomime. ©He executed raids for the 
purpose of accumulating cattle, and in Mexico, where he did most 
of his business, he was said to have a collection of the most beau- 
tiful black-haired brides in the country. Walker dressed in a 
brown broadcloth suit, cut. in European fashion, a fine cam- 
bric shirt and a shining beaver hat. To these he added Indian 
trimmings and beads; and he was said to cut a fine figure as 
he rode at the head of his more primitive warriors. Walker 
and Brigham Young became great friends, and usually the chief 
treated the Mormons with respect and their property with con- 
sideration. When Brigham Young made his annual tours of the 
Mormon settlements in the north and south of Utah, he always 
visited Walker and brought him gifts. Upon one occasion Brig- 
ham Young laid hands on the Indian chief, at his request, to cure 
him of a depression of spirit, and sang Mormon hymns to him. 
“He traveled with us to Iron County,” Brigham Young said of 
this visit, “and had dreams which amounted to revelations. If 
I could keep him with me all the time, do you suppose he would 
have an evil spirit? No, he would be filled with the Spirit of 
the Lord.’’ George A. Smith once said in a sermon: 


“T tell you in a country like this, where women are scarce and 
hard to get, we have great need to take care of them, and not let 
the Indians have them. 

“Walker himself has teased me for a white wife; and if any of 
the sisters will volunteer to marry him, I believe I can close the 
war forthwith. I am certain, unless men take better care of their 
women, Walker may supply himself on a liberal scale, and without 
closing the war either. ; 

“In conclusion I will say, if any lady wishes to be Mrs. Walker, 
if she will report herself to me, I will agree to negotiate the match.” ? 


On March 13, 1850, assisted by his first counselors, Heber 
Kimball and Willard Richards, Brigham Young baptized Walker 
and his brother, Arapeen, into the Mormon Church. This, how- 


7 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 197. 


SINAI 247 


ever, did not prevent the chief from making war on his Mormon 
brethren three years later. During this war Brigham Young 
steadfastly refused to attempt the extermination of the band. 
When the Indians were cornered and helpless, Brigham Young 
sent Walker tobacco, “to smoke when he is lonely in the moun- 
tains.” ‘“‘He is now at war with the only frjends he has upon 
the earth,” Brigham Young explained to his people, “and I want 
him to have some tobacco te smoke.” Accompanying the to- 
bacco was this letter: | 


“Great Salt Lake City, July 25, 1853. 
“Capt. Walker :—I send you some tobacco for you to smoke in 
the mountains when you get lonesome. You are a fool for fighting 
your best friends, for we are your best friends, and the only friends 
you have in the world. Everybody else would kill you if they could 
get a chance. If you get hungry send some friendly Indians down 
to the settlements and we will give you some beef-cattle and flour. 
If you are afraid of the tobacco which I send you, you can let some 
of your prisoners [Mormons] try it first, and then you will know 
that it is good. When you get good-natured again, I would like to 
see you. Don’t you think you should be ashamed? You know that 

I have always been your best friend. 
“BRIGHAM YOUNG.” 


In 1855 Brigham Young, as Governor of the Territory of Utah, 
sent the following message on the Indians to the territorial 
legislature: 


“To retaliate for every outbreak by taking their lives, either 
through civil or military power, and severely chastising them for 
every depredation, is actually descending to their grade of conduct, 
and still more excites them to acts of savage barbarity. 

“We witness, in the surrounding territories, the effects of the 
war policy in an almost constant scene of mutual carnage and blood- 
shed, while our experience confirms the opinion of many eminent 
statesmen, that the conciliatory course is far the most humane and 
successful, as well as the most economical. 

“T therefore appeal to you, Gentlemen, to use your influence 
throughout the Territory to preserve the policy of feeding and cloth- 
ing the natives, of giving them employment, teaching them to obtain 
a living by their labor, and exercising patience, perseverance and 
forbearance towards them, as well as care and watchfulness. 

“Let this policy be strictly adhered to in all our settlements, and 


248 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the chances are that we shall hear of no Indian massacres and 
depredations, at least not to any great extent.’ ® 


‘But in spite of this humane policy, there were occasional In- 
dian difficulties. As the white men began to settle in Utah the 
Indians lost their pasture lands and hunting grounds, which were 
turned rapidly into Mormon towns and ranches. They were 
offered by circumstances the choices of starvation, livelihood by 
farming with methods unfamiliar to them, and plunder. Farm- 
ing was not congenial to their migratory habits, practised for cen- 
turies, starvation was unthinkable, so that there remained only 
plunder. The United States government had, it is true, Indian 
agents, but the appropriations were always insufficient and usually 
late. They were at best merely palliatives. The Indians lived 
“on roots, reptiles, insects, and grass-seed when they could not 
steal emigrants’ or Mormons’ cattle and grain. Whenever they 
could do so, they did, to the great inconvenience, chagrin and 
moral indignation of the emigrants and the Mormons. Finally 
General Connor defeated the Indians at the Battle of Bear River, 
where more than three hundred Indians were killed. This dis- 
aster made the other Indians somewhat timid, and herds and 
flocks were thereafter safe in Utah.. Treaties were finally signed 
with the Indians in 1863, by which they agreed to keep the peace, 
and received in return annuities of $21,000 worth of goods for 
a period of twenty years. 


III 


“ Every year Mormons arrived from Winter Quarters, and new 
converts came from England; a year after the first Mormons ar- 
rived in Utah plans were made for new settlements, one ten 
miles north of Salt Lake City, and the other ten miles south. On 
July 24, 1849, the anniversary of the arrival of Brigham Young 
in the valley was celebrated, and every year thereafter July 24 
has been observed as Pioneer Day and commemorated with 
appropriate ceremonies. At the first celebration in 1849 a large 
American flag, “sixty-five feet in length,” we are told, was un- 
furled “at the top of the liberty pole, which is one hundred and 
four feet high.” “Seventy-four young men dressed in white, 
with white scarfs on their right shoulders, and coronets on their 


8 Millennial Star, vol, 18, p. 260. 


SINAI 249 


heads, each carrying in his right hand a copy of the declaration 
of independence and the constitution of the United States, and 
each carrying a sheathed sword in his left hand,’ were followed 
by “‘seventy-four young ladies, dressed in white, and with white 
scarfs on their right shoulders, and wreaths of white roses on 
their heads, each carrying a copy of the Bible, and the Book of 
Mormon.” At the meeting which followed this procession, the 
Declaration of Independence was presented to Brigham Young by 
one of the seventy-four young men in white, and all the people, 
led by Brigham Young, shouted, “May it live for ever.” When 
the Mormons discovered that the land which they had expected 
to appropriate from Mexico was already confiscated by the 
United States, they did not hesitate to declare their loyalty to 
the government they had hoped to escape. 

The new settlement survived crickets, Indians, and drought, 
but it was early subjected to a more serious test of endurance. 
The sudden, almost miraculous, discovery that gold lay under 
the ground in California, a short distance away, was the source 
of both potential profit and imminent disaster to the struggling 
Mormon community. The discovery of gold in California ‘is 
credited to James W. Marshall, who was digging one day early 
in 1848 with a group of Mormons from the Mormon Battalion 
at Sutter’s Fort, near Sacramento, Marshall, though not a 
Mormon himself, was in charge of these Mormon laborers, who 
were digging a mill race for Captain Sutter, when their shovels 
turned up some small yellow grains with the soft dirt. News 
of the great discovery was kept quiet at first, but by February, 
1849, it had spread sufficiently to bring more than 8,000 emi- 
grants in 137 ships, and by the end of the following month the 
New York Herald said that 18,341 men had left the eastern 
states by sea for California. By July, 1849, there were said to 
be 40,000 Americans in California, which just before the war 
with Mexico had been inhabited by less than 3,000. By January 
I, 1850, there were 120,000 Americans and Europeans in Cali- 
fornia, and 12,000,000 dollars’ worth of gold from there had been 
deposited at the Washington mint. It was estimated that 30,- 
000,000 dollars’ worth had been mined during the year 1849.° 

The first definite news of the extent of the gold discovery was 


® These figures of population and mining are taken from The History of 
North America, vol. 13, Growth of the Nation from 1837-1860, by E. W. 
Sikes and W. M. Kenner. 


250 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


brought to Salt Lake City by members of the Mormon Battalion, 
who went there from California to join their families. On their 
way they met emigrants en route to the mines, who were frantic 
for news of gold. One of the Mormons took out his purse 
and poured an ounce of gold dust into the palm of his hand, 
stirring it slowly with his finger, exhibiting its lovely gleam to 
those who were on their way to make their fortunes. One man 
of seventy watched this demonstration with intense interest, and 
when he saw the shining yellow dust, the first concrete indication 
that his long and arduous journey: was not a fool’s chase, he 
threw his old felt hat on the ground, jumped on it with all the 
vigor his age could command, kicked it high in the air, and 
shouted, “Glory, hallelujah, thank God, I'll die a rich man yet!” 

The members of the Mormon Battalion brought into Salt 
Lake City gold in metal and in dust; this was used as security for 
the Kirtland Bank notes, which Joseph Smith had prophesied 
would be “‘as good as gold” some day. Brigham Young took 
this as another instance of the divine authenticity of the late 
Prophet. Mormon currency consisted at this time, besides these 
few notes, of blankets, grain, seed, and flour, and for many years 
after the discovery of gold, currency remained scarce in Salt 
Lake City, where the system of barter remained in use until 1860. 
A carpenter was paid for his work with an order on the stores, 
or, if he worked for the Church, with an order on the central 
tithing house. With this order he paid his rent and got food. 
Tithing was paid to the Church in cattle or grain, if the member 
was a farmer, and in labor, such as shingling church buildings, 
if the man was not. This system gave Brigham Young a great 
economic hold on his people, because a man could not easily ac- 
cumulate riches convertible outside Utah, and it was therefore 
difficult to leave the territory, even if one became dissatisfied 
with its government or disgusted with its religion. 

The discovery of gold and the immediate rush to mine it were 
both the greatest blessing and the greatest trial of the community 
at Salt Lake. The gold rush fulfilled the prediction of Heber 
C. Kimball that within a short time Mormons would be able to 
buy goods cheaper in Salt Lake City than in the East, and at the 
same time it threatened to disrupt the community by the tempta- 
tion it offered its members to go such a comparatively short dis- 
tance and get rich quickly. The opportunity to obtain sup- 
plies of all kinds from the emigrants who passed through Salt 


SINAI 251 


Lake City was taken advantage of eagerly, and the danger of dis- 
ruption was prevented by Brigham Young’s powers of argument 
in the pulpit. For one thing, Brigham Young and his asso- 
ciates found great ironic satisfaction in the fact that those people 
who had reviled their Prophet because he was a money digger, 
were now engaged on a wholesale scale in the ‘business of dig- 
ging for money. But they forgot that Joseph Smith, in spite 
of alleged supernatural assistance, never found any money, while 
gold in tangible form was being taken daily from the ground in 
California. 

- The eager emigrants to California stopped at Salt Lake City 
‘to refresh themselves, and usually left as encumbrances much 
\property that was invaluable to the Mormons. In Salt Lake City 
the forty-niners got their first glimpse of the gleaming little 
grains of gold dust, and the sight put them in such a frenzy of 
excitement, and aroused to such an extent the hopes which had 
been somewhat shattered by the depressing journey over plains, 
prairies, and mountains, that they wished only to push on as fast 
as possible, abandoning whatever they did not need to keep them 
alive. There were auction sales daily in the new streets of Salt 
Lake City, and a yoke of oxen with three or four heavy waggons 
would be offered for one light waggon and a horse to carry an 
emigrant, his shovel and pick, and the food he needed for the 
trip to the gold fields. Mormons bought for thirty-seven and a 
half cents waistcoats which sold in St. Louis for $1.50, and 
tools which cost $100 in the East were purchased for twenty-five 
in Salt Lake City. The boon to the Saints was incalculable, for 
emigrants found plows, which they had brought cautiously in 
case gold should fail, an encumbrance, and the Mormons were 
able to replace their worn-out implements for fifty per cent. below 
their cost at wholesale in the eastern states. 

Besides reviving trade and aiding farming, the California emi- 
gration had a social effect on the Mormon community, which 
was once expressed angrily by Elder Orson Hyde in a sermon 
which he delivered before the men and women at the semi-annual 
conference of the Church in October, 1854: 


“What have I got to say concerning women that will come into 
the Church and kingdom of God, and bring dishonor upon them- 
selves, and endeavor to bring it upon the whole Church, by co- 
habiting with those cursed scapegraces who are passing through here 


252 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


to California, who make their boast of what they did in Great Salt 
Lake City? I know their secret talk in their chambers, for the 
Spirit of God searcheth all things... . 

“T am going to say something upon those who dishonor the Church 
and kingdom of God in this way. I will tell you what shall happen 
to those men and women who commit lewdness, and go and boast 
of it, and laugh in the face of heaven. The day shall come when 
their flesh shall rot upon their bones, and as they are walking it shall 
drop, and become a nauseous stink upon the highway. Now go and 
boast that you can get all you want for a dress pattern, or a yard 
of ribbon; go and boast of it, and the Lord Almighty shall curse 
you all the day long. (Voice in the stand, ‘Amen.’) And when you 
step, chunks of your flesh shall drop off your bones, and stink 
enough to sicken a dog. . . . For such abominable practices to come 
in our midst under the robes of sanctity, because there are liberal, 
holy, and righteous principles practised by the Saints, I say, curse 
their habitation and their persons; and if this is your mind, let all 
Israel say amen. (The whole of the congregation at the top of their 
voices said, ‘Amen.’) And let these contemptible wretches feel the 
‘Mormon’ spirit, not by ‘Mormon’ hands, but by the power of God 
on high. ; 

hi Peet charged with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and 
it burns in my heart like a flame, and this is the testimony I bear. If 
I do mingle in the streets with the crowd to engage in business as 
any other man, I am not always asleep, and insensible to what is 
passing around me. I do not profess to know a great deal, but some 
things I do know, and some things I do not know.” ?° 


Brigham Young devoted a sermon to the temptations offered 
to Mormon women by men on their way to California, and to 
the fate of those who yielded to them: 


“How odious it was last winter [1854], in the sight of certain men 
who were here, to think that we had more lawful wives than one; 
yet they would creep into your houses, and try to coax your wives 
and daughters away from you. What for? Was it to give them a 
better character in the midst of the inhabitants of the earth, sustain 
them better, and make them more comfortable, and acknowledge 
them? No—they wanted to prostitute them, to ruin them, and send 
them to the grave, or to the devil, when they had done with them. 

“I do not know what I shall say next winter, if such men make 
their appearance here, as were some last winter. I know what I 
think I shall say, if they play the same game again, let the women 
be ever so bad, so help me God, we will slay them. 


10 Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 86. 


SINAI 253 


“If any wish to go to California to whore it, we will send a 
company of them off; that is my mind, and perhaps some few ought 
to go for they are indeed bad enough. There are some things I 
learned, when I was in the south country lately, which I do not 
wish to mention, because of the friends of those girls who are gone; 
but when they passed through the southern settléments they were 
weeping all the time, and they are perhaps now in their graves. The 
men who coaxed them away did not intend to take them to Cali- 
fornia. If any offer to do the same things again, in these moun- 
tains, ‘judgment shall be laid to the line and righteousness to the 
plummet’; and they say that Brigham does not lie. 

“Tf they want women to go to California with them, we will send 
a company of the same stripe, if they can be found, and then both 
parties will be suited to and for each other. I would rather follow 
her to the grave, and send her home pure, than suffer my daughter 
to be polluted through the corruptions of wicked men. 

“Write this to the States, if you please. If there are any Gentiles 
or hickory ‘Mormons’ here, and so disposed, write it down and 
send it to Washington, that if they send their officers and soldiers 
here, to conduct themselves as they did last winter, they shall meet 
upon the spot the due reward of their crimes.” 


The gold rush to California also had an effect on the Mormon 
emigration to Salt Lake, for parties of Mormons often met 
parties of gold seekers, and there was frequently friction. There 
was, for instance, Mrs. Gilbert, the wife of a Mormon, who was 
traveling in a party of California emigrants. She insisted upon 
stamping on the graves of all Missourians she passed, because 
the Missourians had driven the Mormons from their homes. 
When one of the impartial easterners pointed out that she had no 
way of telling whether these dead Missourians were even re- 
motely related to her traditional enemies, Mrs. Gilbert replied 
that they were from Missouri, and that was enough for her, 
until, angered beyond endurance, Mr. Baker, leader of the party, 
told Mrs. Gilbert that he would rather bring two Mahometans 
through to Salt Lake City than one Mormon, and he added, 
incidentally, his earnest opinion that “Brigham Young was a 
whoremaster.”’ *” 

_Another great disadvantage to the Mormons of the gold rush 
was the disease which came in its wake. As soon as the emigrants 


11 Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 322. 
12 Fruits of Mormonism by More Than Forty Eye-Witnesses, compiled by 


N. Slater, p. 20. 


254 .BRIGHAM YOUNG 


began to cross the continent in great numbers, they brought with | 
them cholera and measles, and the roadside graves became more 
numerous daily. A party of Mormon emigrants crossing the 
prairies in August, 1849, found this inscription on a grave: 


“To any one who may read—June 7th, 1849. May know the 
cause. The Hawkeye company on their journey to California, to 
inform any one who may read this letter, that mankind whilst jour- 
neying through this world are subject to troubles, crosses, and losses, 
of which we, the Hawkeye company, have to say that we mourn the 
loss of one of our company, (to wit) Edward-Haggard, of Aska- 
loosa, Iowa, who departed this life June 7th, 1849,—was taken ill 
at Loup Fork, with diarrhoea, which was the cause of. ending his 
existence here below, we all mourn the loss of a friend, and particu- 
larly to be left in a desert land. We add nothing more. 

“JAMES McMurray, W. W. SAMPSEE, ~ 
J. SHRADE, Wo Gr fmt 72? 


There were added a few lines of original poetry, which, unfortu- 
nately, the corresponding Mormon elder did not have room in 
his letter to copy. 

The emigrants to California in their impatience refused to heed 
the advice of Mormons, who had experience in crossing the 
desert and the plains. The Mormons warned them not to allow 
their cattle to drink water with saleratus or with arsenic, but the 
emigrants branded this advice as a Mormon humbug, and re- 
fused to believe there were any arsenic springs, or that saleratus 
was harmful. The result was that more than 2,000 carcasses of 
oxen lay along the emigrant route, sending up a stench that made 
travel unimaginably unpleasant and dangerously unhealthy. 

Brigham Young’s passion for economic cooperation and home 
industry was thwarted by so much trade with Gentiles, and he 
tried to discourage sales of goods the Mormons did not need. In 
order to increase their patronage, some Gentile merchants joined 
the Mormon Church. These were called “Winter Saints,” for 
they remained Mormons only while hibernating in Salt Lake 
City. One of the privileges these transients enjoyed was that 
of marriage, but when spring came, the “‘Winter Saints” aban- 
doned both their new wives and their new religion for the free- 
dom and the riches of the mines. There were a few men who 
came west to get gold and found religion among the Mormons, 


13 Millennial Star, 1849, p. 340. 


SINAI 255 


but these were not the majority. Brigham Young once told in a 
sermon of a conversation he had with a gold seeker who was also 
interested in religion: ‘““A man from Boston on his way to the 
gold diggings stopped a few days in this city and heard me 
preach. Soon afterwards I met him in the street, and he asked 
me if I knew where hell was. I told him I thought he was on 
the road to that very place; and when he crossed over the Sierra 
Nevada mountains into the gold diggings of California, if he 
discovered that he had not found hell, to come back and let me 
know. As I have not since heard from him, I presume he found 
it; which I now think a person will who goes East as well as 
Vest.’ ** 

While he was not particularly interested in making gold seekers 
Mormons, Brigham Young was vitally concerned with the tend- 
ency of Mormons to become gold seekers. His sermons at the 
period of mining activity bristle with denunciation of the lure 
of gold, and it was one of his greatest triumphs that the Mormons 
lost comparatively few men to the mines. The magnetic pull 
~ towards the mines one would think irresistible for men who were 
so near to them, compared with eastern rivals, and the oppor- 
tunity to grow rich quickly was likely to appeal strongly to a 
people who had worked so hard on meager farms and lost so 
much in their frequent forced migrations. Brigham Young 
sensed the danger at once, and with vigorous arguments he 
appealed constantly to his people to make the wilderness blossom 
as the rose and enjoy the blessings of their paradise rather than 
subject themselves to the degrading influences surrounding the 
underground search for salvation. He was wise enough, how- 
ever, to realize that if he told his people not to go to California, 
he would tempt some of the independent spirits towards for- 
bidden pleasures, and therefore, in his rugged language, he told 
them to go to California and be damned. He thrust into their) 
minds the fear of hell and the desire for salvation, and these 
two combined enabled the Mormons to resist temptation and at 
the same time to await patiently the promise of the other world, 
which Brigham Young constantly dangled before them. It has 
been said by anti-Mormons, but with no proof offered, that 
Brigham Young also dangled the threat of the other world before 
those who wished to leave for the gold mines, and that he, 
through his henchmen, used violence against them. 

14 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 341. 


256 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Brigham Young found it effective on his audience to dis- 
parage in his sermons the value of gold. ‘The true use of gold,” 
he once said, “is for paving streets, covering houses, and making 
culinary dishes; and when the Saints shall have preached the 
gospel, raised grain and built up cities enough the Lord will open 
up a way for a supply of gold to the perfect satisfaction of His 
people. Until then, let them not be over-anxious, for the treas- 
ures of the earth are in the Lord’s storehouse, and He will open 
the doors thereof when and where He pleases.” Brigham 
Young’s picturesque Yankee associate, Heber C. Kimball, once 
told the people in the Tabernacle: “TI will tell you a dream which 
Brother Kesler had lately. He dreamed that there was a sack 
of gold and a cat placed before him, and that he had the privi- 
lege of taking which he pleased, whereupon he took the cat, and 
walked off with her. Why did he take the cat in preference to 
the gold? Because he could eat the cat, but could not eat the 
gold.”’ “Gold,” said Brigham Young, “is good for nothing, only 
as men value it. It is no better than a piece of iron, a piece of 
limestone, or a piece of sandstone, and it is not half so good as 
the soil from which we raise our wheat, and other necessaries 
of life.”’ 

After the California mines had been in operation for ten 
years and his own community had been established for twelve 
years, Brigham Young pointed with pride to the general pros- 
perity of the Mormons compared with the haphazard fortunes of 
those who lived in California: 


“Men, women and children run to California to get gold,” he said. 
“They were then told what I can now prove. ‘Go to California, if 
you will; we will not curse you—we will not injure nor destroy 
you, but we will pity you. If you must go for gold, and that is 
your god, go, and I will promise you one thing: Every man that 
stays here and pays attention to his business will be able, within ten 
years, to buy out four of those who leave for the gold-mines.’ Since 
then some of those persons have come back, and thinking, ‘O dear, 
I declare I wish the brethren could not know that I had been away! 
I want to appear as though I had not gone to California, and to be 
full of good works and faith.’ Poor, ignorant, pusillanimous crea- 
tures! They come whining back and want to be considered in full 
fellowship, after leaving this place to which our God has led us, 
and after having used their means to feast and build up the Gentiles. 
. . . You may take all who have unadvisedly gone from this Terri- 
tory, (and hundreds and thousands have so gone,) and I believe that 


SINAI 257 


I alone am able to buy the whole of them, though when I came here 
I had but very little property, except what I owed for.” 


Those Mormons who did leave Salt Lake City for California 
were warned not to come back there to die in piety, or, as Brig- 
ham Young expressed it, “Let such leave their carcasses where 
they do their work; we want not our burial grounds polluted 
with such hypocrites.”’ Brigham Young, however, did not have 
any objections to the return of wealthy prodigals, who lent their 
money without interest to aid their brethren, but he was particu- 
larly vehement against those who refused to use their new riches 
for the benefit of their friends and the community. He once 
said in a sermon: 


“Tf at the mines they will listen to the counsel of those men who 
have been appointed to counsel them, and when they return work 
righteousness, and do as they would be done unto, and acknowledge 
God in all their ways, they may yet attain unto great glory; but if 
they shall cease to hearken to counsel, and make gold their god, and 
return among the Saints, filled with avarice, and refuse to lend, or 
give, or suffer their money to be used unless they can make a great 
speculation thereby, and will see their poor brethren, who have 
toiled all the day, in want and perplexity, and they will not relieve, 
but keep the dust corroding in their purses, it had been better for 
them if a mill stone had been hanged about their necks, and they 
had been drowned in the depths of the sea, before they departed 
from the right ways of the Lord; for if they shall continue thus to 
harden their hearts, and to shut up their bowels of compassion 
against the needy, they will go down to the pit with all idolators, in 
a moment they are not aware, with as little pity as they have mani- 
fested to their poor brethren, who would have borrowed of them 
but have been sent empty away.” 7° 


IV 


The economic advantages of the gold rush enabled the Mor- 
mons to continue their struggle to make the wilderness blossom 
as the rose with the odds slightly in their favor. Difficulties con- 
tinued to present themselves, but the community succeeded in 
keeping alive and in satisfying the most imperative needs. Oc- 
casionally grasshoppers and drought combined to bring famine, 


15 Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, pp. 172-173. 
16 Millennial Star, vol. 12, pp. 244-245. 


258 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


as in 1855-1856, when everybody ate only what was apportioned | 
to him, but these periods were not many, and by careful storage | 
of provisions in time of plenty, the community was able to sur- 
vive in its dangerous isolation from outside aid. The success of 
the community was attributed by all who watched its early 
growth to the guiding influence and strict domination of Brigham 
Young. It was to obtain codperative endeavor among his people 
and perseverance in the face of immense difficulties with the 
natural disadvantages of their environment that Brigham Young 
had devoted his life. He, and he alone among his people, realized 
that an autocratic communism was their only salvation, and he 
fought, sometimes savagely, to maintain this idea, which was to 
prove so successful economically. The odds were against him 
at almost every round in the fight. : 
~ First, Brigham Young had the powerful force of individuality 
and personality to batter down, and he did so by subduing all 
personal and temperamental traits which he could not harness to 
the community service. Brigham Young believed in education, 
but only in education which would later prove practically useful 
to its owner or to his neighbors, and preferably to his neighbors. 
To know something for the joy involved in finding it out was to 
his mind a complete waste of valuable time. In his sermoris he 
was frequently contemptuous of pure science and philosophy, and 
he often ridiculed Professor Orson Pratt, who was the only 
mathematician and philosopher in the community. ‘We have 
few collegians among us,’”’ Brigham Young once told the con- 
gregation with an air of satisfaction, “but I know that a thor- 
oughly educated man knows no more than you do, when his 
literature is displayed, though he spreads himself like the green 
bay tree.” It would have been extraordinary indeed if Brigham 
“ Young had encouraged the fine arts and the pure sciences, for, 
as Sir Richard Burton wrote after his visit to the Mormons, “‘it- 
erature will not yet enable a youth to marry and to set up house- 
keeping in the Rocky Mountains.” In order that the community 
might prosper, it was necessary that the youths should think only 
of those things which enabled themselves and their neighbors to 
marry and set up housekeeping in the Rocky Mountains. It was 
necessary first that the wilderness should blossom as the rose, and 
then, perhaps, there would be no objection to a little poetry in- 
spired by the roses. But manual labor which was at first a 


SINAT 259 


necessity, became imperceptibly in the minds of Brigham Young 
and his people the greatest of all virtues. In 1901, when the 
Church was wealthy and at peace with the world, Brigham 
Young, Jr., made this entry in his diary: “Had a lengthy talk 
‘with Pres. Snow. ... Discussed Bro. paintings and his 
itinery for the next seven months to fulfill his year’s contract to 
paint for the Church. Pres. Snow does not seem to feel the 
necessity of art among us this is too much of a luxury when 
we have so many poor wanting the necessities of life, at least 
this is the way it strikes me.” * 

Sir Richard Burton listened to a mild clash in the Tabernacle 
between Brigham Young and Professor Orson Pratt. Burton 
described the situation in these words: 





“The Usman of the New Faith, writer, preacher, theologian, mis- 
sionary, astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician,—especially in 
the higher branches,—he has thrust thought into a faith of ceremony 
which is supposed to dispense with the trouble of thinking; and has 
intruded human learning into a scheme whose essence is the utter 
abrogation of the individual will. He is consequently suspected 
of too much learning, of relying, in fact, rather upon books and 
mortal paper, than that royal road to all knowledge, inspiration from 
on high, and his tendencies to let loose these pernicious doctrines 
often bring him into trouble and place him below his position. In 
his excellent discourse to-day, he had declared the poverty of the 
Mormons, and was speedily put down by Mr. Brigham Young, who 
boasted the Saints to be the wealthiest (7.e., in good works and post- 
obit prospects) people in the world. I had tried my best to have 
the pleasure of half an hour’s conversation with the Gauge, [Orson 
Pratt was known as ‘The Gauge of Philosophy’] who, however, for 
reasons unknown to me, declined.” +8 


Brigham Young took delight in ridiculing the technique of 
philosophizing, and he once said in a sermon, “‘When I read some 
of the writings of such philosophers, they make me think, ‘O 
dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got!’”’ It was the 
language of erudition that irritated Brigham Young more than 
its ideas. He and Orson Pratt thought alike fundamentally, for 
Pratt, as Burton pointed out, only used his reading to build up 

17 Manuscript Diary of Brigham Young, Jr., p. 148. In the Manuscript 


Collection of the New York Public Library. 
18 The City of the Saints, p. 429. 


260 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


a defense of his faith, Brigham Young was annoyed, however, | 
by the variety of human expression, while Orson Pratt had suf- 
ficient feeling for words to wish to use them in their shades of 
meaning. Of the two, however, Brigham Young’s sermons are 
“far superior, for they have a simplicity of expression which adds 
to the charm of his ideas, while Pratt’s ideas, much more meager 
in content, were always hidden in the convolutions of his expres- 
sion. Once in a sermon Brigham Young gave his idea of human 
expression : 


“The English language, in its written and printed form, is one of 
the most prominent now in use for absurdity, yet as a vehicle in 
which to convey our ideas verbally, it is one of the best, for extent 
and variety it goes before, and far beyond, any other. Its variety is 
what I dislike. The schools in the Southern, New England, and 
Eastern States, all teach the English language, yet the same ideas 
are conveyed with entirely different classes of words, by these sepa- 
rate communities. If there were one set of words to convey one set 
of ideas, it would put an end to the ambiguity which often mystifies 
the ideas given in the language now spoken. Then when a great man 
delivered a learned lecture upon any subject, we could understand 
his words, for there would be only one word with the same meaning, 
instead of a multiplicity of words all meaning the same thing, as is 
the case now. For instance, there are men in this house so technical 
in their feelings with regard to their choice of words, that when 
their ideas are formed, and they commence to convey them, they 
will stop in the middle of a sentence, and introduce another set of 
words to convey the same idea. If I can speak so that you can get 
my meaning, I care not so much what words I use to convey that 
meaning. ... 

“T long for the time that a point of the finger, or motion of the 
hand, will express every idea without utterance. When a man is 
full of the light of eternity, then the eye is not the only medium 
through which he sees, his ear is not the only medium by which he 
hears, nor the brain the only means by which he understands. When 
the whole body is full of the Holy Ghost, he can see behind him with 
as much ease, without turning his head, as he can see before him. If 
you have not that experience, you ought to have. It is not the optic 
nerve alone that gives the knowledge of surrounding objects to the 
mind, but it is that which God has placed in man—a system of in- 
telligence that attracts knowledge, as light cleaves to light, intelli- 
gence to intelligence, and truth to truth. It is this which lays in man 
a proper foundation for all education. I shall yet see the time that 
{ can converse with this people, and not speak to them, but the 


SINAI 261 


expression of my countenance will tell the congregation what I wish 
to convey, without opening my mouth.” 1° 


In an effort to simplify language, Brigham Young ordered the 'y 
Board of Regents of the Deseret “University, the educational insti- 
tution established by the Mormons for the education of their 
own young in the faith, to draw up a system of simplified, \ 
' phonetic spelling with an entirely new alphabet, known as the// 
“Deseret Alphabet. The Book of Mormon was printed in the new | 
characters, but it was found more difficult to read Deseret 
than to read English, and the plan was finally abandoned. 
“” “Often when I stand up here,” Brigham Young once said in 
the pulpit, “I have the feelings of a person that is unable to 
convey his ideas, because I have not the advantage of language. 
However, I do not frequently complain of that, but I rise to do 
the best I can and to give the people the best I have for them 
at the time; and if it don’t suit them they can go without it, 
for I am not responsible whether it suits them or not.” Crudity 
and incoherence in speech were preferable, in Brigham Young’s/ 
(opinion, to verbosity. He likened his own and Brother Kimball’s 
discourses to dishes of succotash, in which beans and corn were 
_mixed, and “those who like the beans best can pick them out, and— 
“ those who prefer the corn can select it out.” And it is unde- 
“™niable that his and Brother Kimball’s sermons are, with a few 
exceptions, the only documents in the more than twenty volumes 
of the Journal of Discourses which have any interest as reflec- 
“tions of personality unvarnished by unsuccessful attempts at 
< conscious erudition. ‘ 
~Brigham Young did not read much; Sir Richard Burton said) 
of him that “his mind was uncorrupted by books.” One of his 
associates, who later left the Church, T. B. H. Stenhouse, wrote 
in his book, The Rocky Mountain Saints, that Brigham Young 
“probably never read a book, outside of the Mormon faith, in 
his life. His secretary, or Mr. Cannon, generally reads to him 
anything considered interesting or amusing. Their enlighten- 
ment of his mind is always in the direction of his own preju- 
dices.” When Vice-President Schuyler Colfax visited Salt Lake 
City, Brigham Young delivered a defense of polygamy for the 
benefit of his distinguished visitor. He argued that Martin 
Luther had approved of polygamy when he sanctioned the mar- 


19 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 170. 


262 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


riage of Philip, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, to a second 
wife while his first wife was still alive and married to him, Brig-- 
ham Young’s history had been prepared for him in advance by 
his secretaries, and when he looked at his notes, he saw some- 
thing about Philip Landgrave of Hesse; he spoke to the audience 
of that eminent polygamist, “Mr. Philip Landgrave, of Hesse,” 
much to the amusement of his Gentile visitors and the mortifica-.. 
tion of his more educated and more self-conscious brethren. “I 
_will acknowledge,” Brigham Young once said in a sermon, “my 
lack of memory to retain scientific phrases, and the names of 
places, and of men who have figured in the history of the world. 
With these exceptions, | am not a whit behind them [the Gen- 
tiles] as to a knowledge of things as they are, though I confess 
that my knowledge is limited.’’ Huis statement was modest, for, _ 
in a knowledge of things as they are, he was far and away ahead 
of most of his contemporaries. 

Sometimes Brigham Young was conscious of his own crudities 
and those of his people; he once explained them in a sermon: 


“Tt is true that we have not the etiquette here, as a general thing 
that is in the world; and this is not at all strange when the circum- 
stances in which most of the people have been reared are consid- 
ered. When I meet ladies and gentlemen of high rank, as I some- 
times do, they must not expect from me the same formal ceremony 
and etiquette that are observed among the great in the courts of 
kings. In my youthful days, instead of going to school, I had to 
chop logs, to sow and plant, to plow in the midst of roots bare- 
footed, and if I had on a pair of pants that would cover me I did 
pretty well. Seeing that this was the way I was brought up they 
cannot expect from me the same etiquette and ceremony as if I 
had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. .. . Many and many 
a man here, who is now able to ride in his waggon and perhaps in 
his carriage, for years and years before he started for Zion never 
saw daylight. His days were spent in the coal mines, and his daily 
toil would commence before light in the morning and continue until 
after dark at night. Now what can be expected from a community 
so many of whose members have been brought up like this, or if not 
just like this, still under circumstances of poverty and privation? 
.. - But I will tell you what we have in our mind’s eye with regard 
to these very people, and what we are trying to make of them. We 
take the poorest we can find on earth who will receive the truth, 
and we are trying to make ladies and gentlemen of them. We are 
trying to educate them, to school their children, and to so train them 


SINATI 263 


that they may be able to gather around them the comforts of life, 
that they may pass their lives as the human family should do— 
that their days, weeks, and months may be pleasant to them. We 
prove that this is our design, for the result, to some extent, is already 
before us.” 2° 


That Brigham Young’s design and its execution were productive 
of the greatest good to the greatest number cannot be denied, 
and the very few who:chafed under the lack of Epicureanism, as 
in all pioneer civilizations, had to be sacrificed to the majority, 
who were Yankee farmers, English miners and mechanics, and 
Scandinavian peasants, whose ideals were those Brigham Young 
tried so hard and so successfully to satisfy. Even Orson Pratt, 
much as he may have preferred higher mathematics to problems 
in irrigation, was in favor of this sacrifice, for in his periodical, 
The Seer, he went further even than Brigham Young: 


“Painting, music, and all the fine arts, should be cherished, and 
cultivated, as accomplishments which serve to adorn and embellish 
an enlightened, civilized people, and render life agreeable and happy; 
but when these are cultivated, to the exclusion of the more neces- 
sary duties and qualifications, it is like adorning swine with costly 
jewels and pearls to make them appear more respectable: these em- 
bellishments only render such characters a hundred fold more odious 
and disgustful than they would otherwise appear.” ** 


On one occasion Brigham Young described to his people the 
mechanism of his practical mind: 


“This is my philosophy on thinking; and if I were obliged to think 
for ten years, and not erect a building, or help build up a city, or in 
any way put my thoughts into execution, it would materially injure 
my mental faculty, through want of results for it to rest upon. But 
let me engage in active operations, even though I do not personally | 
perform one day’s manual labor, let me see the result of my thinking 
budding into existence, and my mind has something to rest upon. 
. . . Can you go to sleep in one minute, after you have said your 
prayers and gone to bed? Can you cease reflection, bid good-bye to 
thought, and say to the body, compose yourself and let us go to 
sleep? How many now in this house can do that? Whether it is 
natural or supernatural, mental or mechanical, it matters not, but 
I have trained myself to go to sleep when I get ready, and when I 


20 Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, p. 103. 
21 The Seer, p. 187. 


264 _ BRIGHAM YOUNG 


am in good health, as a general thing, in about one minute I can be 
fast asleep.” 7? 


Brigham Young was Julius Czesar’s ideal; he was neither lean, 
nor hungry, he did not think too much for his material welfare, 
and he suffered no one around him to do so. For, as head of 
the Mormon community, Brigham Young demanded and received 
implicit obedience. “If this people will do as they are told,” he 
said, “will please those who preside over them, they will do 
well for themselves. And if they will do this from morning to 
evening and from evening to morning, all will be right, and their 
acts will tend to promote the kingdom of God on the earth.” He 
pointed out previously that if the people were really living “‘in 
the enjoyment of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and had 
“the testimony of Jesus within them’ they would know in- 
stinctively when their leaders were taking them astray, and could 
therefore deliver themselves Over to the head of the Church with 
perfect confidence. When some of them did occasionally pro- 
“test against some action of Brigham Young or his associates, 
they were usually told that they lacked the enjoyment of the 
Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, and were in the possession of 
Satan. On the whole, however, Brigham Young was satisfied 
with his flock, who usually followed his leadership with un- 
questioning obedience. After they were in Utah for ten years, 
he once compared their lot and his position with that of the 
children of Israel and Moses: 


“Tt will be twenty-seven years on the sixth of next month, since 
this Church was organized. What do you think about this people? 
I say that the virtuous acts of their lives beat the whole world. 
Were the children of Israel ever so obedient to Moses, as this people 
are to me? No, they never began to be; for obedience they could 
not favorably compare with this people. Moses led his people forty 
years in the wilderness in rebellion, fighting, stealing, whoring, and 
every manner of iniquity; and their evils were so great, that God 
cut every one of them off in the wilderness, except Caleb and Joshua. 
He did not suffer one of them to go into the land of Canaan, except 
the two I have named; they never revolted from Moses, but held up 
his hands all the time. They never turned away, not even when 
Aaron, his half-brother and right-hand man, made the golden calf.” *8 


22 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 249. 
23 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 269. 


SINAI 265 


Heber Kimball, Brigham Young’s right-hand man, never tired 
of comparing the people to clay in the hands of the potter and to 
iron in the hands of the blacksmith, and it never seemed to 
occur to any one that the comparison was not flattering. The 
people were quite content to be as clay and as iron, for they 
trusted their potter and blacksmith thoroughly. 


Brigham Young soon became to his people a combination oracle 


‘\ 


and nursemaid. An old lady once called at his office to ask 
whether, according to the word of the Lord, it was better to 
wear red or yellow flannel next the skin. Brigham Young coun- 
seled her by all means to wear yellow. Upon another occasion 
a woman rushed to him and tearfully complained that her hus- 
band had told her to go to Hell. Brigham Young looked at her 
solemnly and said, “Well, don’t go; don’t go.” He encouraged 
this tendency to consult him on everything, and he once said in 


aesermon: “If you do not know what to do in order to do right, \ 
/ come to me at any time, and I will give you the word of the Lord 


~on the subject.” They came, and Brigham Young devoted much” 
of his time to their minute troubles, for he realized that such time 


was not wasted for a man in his position. His patience helped» 


to inform him of the most intimate details of the life of his 


| people, and it increased the confidence which those people reposed 


in him, their respect for him, and his power over them, for he 
soon got to know who were his enemies when he became arbiter / 
of the quarrels of the community. There was nothing too small 
for his attention. In a letter to the elders in England Willard 
Richards once wrote: “Our president don’t stick at any thing 
that tends to advance the gathering of Israel, or promote the 
cause of Zion in these last days; he sleeps with one eye open and 
one foot out of bed, and when any thing is wanted, he is on 
hand, and his counselors are all of one heart with him in all 
things.’ Summing up the manifold duties and privileges of 
Brigham Young, a less reverent observer once remarked: “In 
addition to all this, he heals the afflicted by the laying on of 
hands, and comforts the widow by becoming her husband.” 

It would seem at first that rugged Yankees, who had heard 
nothing but talk of independence and liberty in their youth, would 
not have tolerated the paternal despotism which Brigham Young 
exercised over them. He himself was conscious of the conflict 
of his practice with the general superficial philosophy of Ameri- 


266 | BRIGHAM YOUNG 


cans, and he gave his opinion of the common ideals of inde- 
pendence and individual freedom: 


“We are in a land of liberty; and our fathers have taught us— 
especially those born in America, that every man and woman and 
every child old enough to speak, argue, read, reflect, etc., must have 
minds of their own, and not listen to anybody else. They are taught 
to shape their own opinions, and not depend upon others to direct 
their thoughts, words, or actions. That system of teaching reminds: 
me of the old saying, ‘Every man for himself, and the Devil for them 
all.’ Such views, though entertained by the family at large, must 
be checked in this people... . 

“My maxim is, and it is a rule I have established in the Legisla- 
ture of this Territory, never to oppose anything unless the one mak- 
ing the objection can present something better. Do not oppose when 
you cannot improve. If you are not capable of dictating your 
brethren, do not say that you will dictate them until you have found 
out a better path than the one in which they are walking.” ** 


It did not seem to occur to Brigham Young or to any of his fol- 
lowers that it is not necessary to know better in order to distin-_ 
guish bad. They accepted this binding rule of procedure, and 
kept silent. ‘The reason why they turned over their independence 
“of thought and action to their leader was contained in his jocular 
statement in the pulpit once, when he was asked if he regarded 
himself as a prophet. He replied, “I am of profit to my people,” , 
and so long as he remained so, they asked for very little else. 
They even worshiped him for it. Heber Kimball once said in 
the Bowery at Salt Lake City: “On account of the breeze that 
is playing beneath this shade, brother Brigham thought I had 
better put on my hat, but I never feel as though I wanted to 
wear my hat when he is present. I consider that the Master 
should wear his hat, or hang it on the peg that God made for it, 
which is his head, of course.” Brigham Young usually wore a 
large, black, felt, “‘stovepipe’’ hat in public, and he seldom took 
it off indoors. 

Another reason for the success of Brigham Young’s domina- 
‘ tion was his modest insistence that all he was or could ever hope 
,_ to become was due to the Lord, and that he was nothing in him- 
self without the guidance of God. This appealed strongly to a 
people who had accepted Joseph Smith as a direct representative 


24 Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, pp. 41, 44. 


SINAT 267 


of the Almighty. Brigham Young, however, did not believe in>) 
bothering the Lord, directly, too much. His expressed policy | 
was to devote himself to works first with all his ability, and to | 
faith only after the possibilities of his works were exhausted. | 
“It is the Lord,” he said once during a drought, “that gives the | 
increase. He could send showers to water our fields, but I do 
not know that I have prayed for rain since I have been i in these 
valleys until this year, during which I believe that I have prayed 
two or three times for rain, and then with a faint heart, for 
there is plenty of water flowing down these cafons in crystal 
streams as pure as the breezes of Zion, and it is our business to 
use them. I do not feel disposed to ask the Lord to do for me) 
what I can do for myself. I know when I sow the wheat and 
“Water it that I cannot give the increase, for that is in the hands 
of the Almighty; and when it is time to worship the Lord, I will 
leave all and worship Him.” *° 

Brigham Young insisted that his people follow his example of 
mixing work with their faith and preparedness with their prayer. 
Only when artificial circumstances prevented a man from taking 
care of himself, was he justified in taking his troubles to the 
Lord. He once expressed this idea in this language: 


“When a person is placed in circumstances that he cannot possibly 
obtain one particle of anything to sustain life, it would then be his 
privilege to exercise faith in God to feed him, who might cause a 
raven to pick up a piece of dried meat from some quarter where 
there was plenty, and drop it over the famishing man. When I can- 
not feed myself through the means God has placed in my power, 
it is then time enough for Him to exercise His providence in an 
unusual manner to administer to my wants. But while we can help 
ourselves, it is our duty to do so. Ifa Saint of God be locked up 
in prison, by his enemies, to starve to death, it is then time enough 
for God to interpose, and feed him. 

“While we have a rich soil in this valley, and seed to put in the 
ground, we need not ask God to feed us, nor follow us round with 
a loaf of bread begging of us to eat it. He will not do it, neither 
would I, were I the Lord. We can feed ourselves here; and if we 
are ever placed in circumstances where we cannot, it will then be’ 
time enough for the Lord to work a miracle to sustain us.” *° 


25 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 331. 
26 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 108, 


268 | BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Brigham Young believed with Oliver Cromwell in trusting to 
God but keeping the powder dry, and with Mohammed in trust- 
ing to Allah but tying up the camels. When he feared the fate 
of Joseph Smith at the hands of his enemies, Brigham Young 
“used this combination: “I have prayed many times, and had a 
man at the door to watch for the murderer who thirsted for my 
blood. Then he would pray, and I would watch. What for? 
To kill the blood-thirsty villain.” 

We have seen that Brigham Young believed in hell as well as 
heaven, and in works as well as faith; he also believed in the 
virtues of adversity as well as those of prosperity. He retained 
‘many of the principles of Puritanism which were inculcated in) 
him by the environment of his youth; but the one which remained | 
all his life, and which he impressed upon his people was the 
principle that hardship is a blessing, for without it no one could 
_know the value of ease. His sermons were littered with marti- 
festations of this sentiment. “Suppose you were rolling in 
wealth,” he told his congregation one Sunday morning, “and per- 
fectly at your ease, with an abundance around you, you might 
have remained in that condition until Domesday, and never could 
have known about the works of God, in the great design of the 
creation, without first being made acquainted with the opposite.” 
Brigham Young forced his people to believe that adversity was a | 
part of salvation, because it was necessary for the temporal wel- 
fare of the Mormons that they should believe in the lessons of 
hardship, for, unless they could face their discouragements in 
the form of crickets to eat their crops and Indians to steal their 
cattle, with the assurance that comfort was in the offing and would 
be all the more poignant when it came, they were likely to despair, 
and despair would have wrecked that colony in the valley of the 
Salt Lake faster than Indians, crickets, or armies. Those who 
survived the hardships, which were something in the nature of 
tests, would be saved, said Brigham Young, and those who turned 
aside from them to search for the vanity of human riches 
would be damned to eternal damnation. “There is not a hard- 
ship, there is not a disappointment, there is not a trial, there is 
not a hard time, that comes upon this people in this place, but 
that I am more thankful for than I am for full granaries. We 
have been hunting during the past twenty-six years, for a place 
where we could raise Saints, not merely wheat and corn. Com- 
paratively I care but little about the wheat and corn, though a 


SINAI 269 


little is very useful.” He once described the vanity of attaching 
too much importance to the things of this world: 


“There are hundreds of people in these valleys, who never owned 
a cow in the world, until they came here, but now they have got a 
few cows and sheep around them, a yoke of oxen, and a horse to 
ride upon, they feel to be personages of far greater importance than 
Jesus Christ was, when he rode into Jerusalem upon an ass’s colt. 
They become puffed up in pride, and selfishness, and their minds 
become attached to the things of this world. They become covetous, 
which makes them idolaters. Their substance engrosses so much of 
their attention, they forget their prayers, and forget to attend the 
assemblies of the Saints, for they must see to their land, or to their 
crops that are suffering, until by and bye the grasshoppers come 
like a cloud, and cut away the bread from their mouth, introducing 
famine and distress, to stir them up in rememberance of the Lord 
their God. Or the Indians will come, and drive off their cattle; 
where then is their wealth in their grain, and in their cattle? Are 
these things riches? No. They are the things of this world, made 
to decay, to perish, or to be decomposed, and thus pass away.” #7 


Fortunately for their peace of mind, neither Brigham Young nor 
his people ever allowed themselves to believe for one moment 
that they, perhaps, might be things of this world, made to decay, 
to perish, or to be decomposed, and thus pass away. 

George Bernard Shaw wrote: “The ruler who appeals to the 
prospect of heaven to console the poor and keep them from insur- 
rection also curbs the vicious by threatening them with hell. In 
the Koran we find Mahomet driven more and more to this ex- 
pedient of government; and experience confirms his evident belief 
that it is impossible to govern without it in certain phases of 
civilization.” Brigham Young used for purposes of govern- 
ment, not only the prospect of hell in the indefinite future, but 
also the prospect of adversity any day, in order that his people 
might be humble and docile in their prosperity. The result was 
that, except for occasional short famines and droughts, they were 
uncommonly prosperous. 

Sooner or later the Mormons expected to extend their suc- 
cessful domain throughout the Far West. When they first peti- 
tioned Congress for a government, they asked to be admitted to 
the United States as the State of Deseret, the land of the honey- 


27 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 267. 


270 } BRIGHAM YOUNG 


bee, which was their translation of the name they adopted for 
their territory, where, as Burton pointed out, “that industrious 
insect is an utter stranger.’’ They asked that the State of Deseret 
comprise all the territory from what is now Utah to the west, 
extending south as far as Mexico, and north as far as the Colum- 
bia River, including California and what is to-day the entire 
Far West. But Congress decided that the Mormons were biting 
off much more than they should be allowed to chew, and instead 
of admitting them as the State of Deseret, their domain was con- 
tracted to what is now Utah and Nevada, and organized in 1850 
as the Territory of Utah. Brigham Young was appointed terri- 
torial governor by President Millard Fillmore, and in gratitude 
he named the capital city of the new territory Fillmore. In 1850 
there were 11,354 people in Utah; in 1880, a few years after 
the death of Brigham Young there were about 120,000. The 
difference was made up largely by European emigration. 


V 


Brigham Young gave much attention to the work of the mis- 
sionaries who were sent forth every year to convert people in 
England and the Scandinavian countries, as well as in the eastern 
states. When a missionary wrote to Utah from New York that 
the prospects for conversion there were bad, and that there was 
no room for preaching in the East, Brigham Young expressed it 
as his opinion that the opportunities for conversion were greater 
in New York than they had formerly been in Galilee: ““Had I 
the choice,’ he said, “whether to go to the States and gather 
Saints, or to go where the Gospel was preached by the ancient 
Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, among the children of the 
people who have formerly had the Gospel preached to them, I 
would engage to go to the States and gather one hundred Saints 
to one that could be gathered from among the children of those 
who heard Peter, Paul, and others of the ancient Apostles preach 
the Gospel.’”” On the whole, Brigham Young was satisfied with 
the labors of his missionaries, and he once said that if the mileage 
they covered was compared with that covered by the ancient 
Israelite preachers, the Prophets, Jesus Christ, and the Apostles, 
it would be found that the Mormon missionaries had covered 
much more ground. 

Brigham Young established what was known as the Perpetual 


buavasbua LApsoguajuor D WOAsT 
€SQI NI ALI) AMV] LIvS 


CLE ELEN OR A BRE age 


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SINAI ADE 


Emigration Fund, to which his people contributed money and 
goods, to be used for the purpose of bringing to Zion foreign con- 
verts who could not pay their own traveling expenses. After 
they arrived in Utah, these converts were givén work and were 
supposed to pay back the cost of their passage. The territory 
needed laborers and farmers, and women who would marry them 
and raise large families. This plan of advancing the expenses to 
converts caused some friction, for usually they were in no hurry 
to pay back what they owed after they were established on farms 
in Utah. Brigham Young in his sermons continually exhorted 
the people to pay their debts to the emigration fund. 

Sometimes the elders in Europe took what money converts 
had and gave them for it drafts on Brigham Young, payable 
when they arrived in Utah. Brigham Young once described the 
anxiety for their money which the converts showed: 


“There are men who have lately arrived in town who have a 
draft on me, and who have hunted me up for the cash before they 
could find time to shave their beards, or wash themselves, saying, ‘I 
have a draft on you at ten days’, fifty days’, or six months’ sight,’ 
as the case may be, with, ‘Please pay so and so. Brigham Young, 
cannot you let me have the money immediately, for I do not know 
how I can live without it, or get along with my business at all?’ 
This is the kind of confidence some men have in me. I wanted to 
name this. Why? Because I am hunted; I am like one that is 
their prey, ready to be devoured. I wish to give you one text to 
preach upon, ‘From this time henceforth do not fret thy gizzard.’ 
I will pay you when I can, and not before. Now I hope you will 
apostatize, if you would rather do it.” *° 


During the first ten years of the residence in Utah about 17,000 
emigrants arrived from Europe. Before the gold rush started, 
the Church transported emigrants from England to Utah for 
fifty dollars each, including their food, but after the prices went 
up as a result of the increased traffic across the plains, the price 
was raised to sixty-five dollars. By 1857 there were seventeen 
places of worship for Mormons in Great Britain, and four thou- 
sand volunteer missionaries combed that country for converts. 
Denmark was the next best field, for freedom of religious dis- 
cussion was allowed there. Germany and France, because of the 
differences of temperament and language, did not contribute many 
‘converts to Mormonism. The missionaries were always most suc- 


28 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 3. 


272 ? BRIGHAM YOUNG 


cessful in districts where the climate was harsh, wages low, living 
conditions wretched, and where there were large numbers of 
illiterate men and women. Wales was a particularly fertile field. 
The Mormon missionaries made very little effort to convert rich 
men, for they had nothing to offer the rich man except the dif- 
ficulty he would experience getting into heaven, and to him their 
proffer of a lot in Salt Lake City or the right to raise his own 
food and clothing would not appeal strongly. A table of occupa- 
tions of Mormon emigrants, selected at random from the lists of 
several ships, showed that the greatest numbers were blacksmiths, 
bakers, butchers, bricklayers, shoemakers, boiler makers, car- 
penters, dyers, engineers, knitters, farmers, gardeners, miscellane- 
ous laborers, miners, millers, masons, mariners, spinners, sawyers, 
tailors, and wheelwrights. The professions, however, were not 
altogether unrepresented. There were two butlers in one of the 
emigrating parties, and six hairdressers in another. Two artists, 
two confectioners, one doll maker, one dancing master, an interior 
decorator, two gamekeepers, one haberdasher, two innkeepers, one 
lawyer, one musician, an omnibus conductor, four stewards, six 
soldiers, a toll-gate keeper, four umbrella makers, a vellum binder, 
two valets, two university students, and a perfumer came to Utah 
to make the wilderness blossom as the rose.”® A French observer 
found these nationalities in Salt Lake City, and he set them down 
in the following order of their numerical importance: ‘English, 
Scotch, Canadians, Americans (these are for the most part the 
original converts of Joseph Smith), Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, 
Germans, Swiss, Poles, Russians, Italians, French, Negroes, Hin- 
doos, and Australians; we even saw a Chinese there.”’ °° 

In the epistles to the Saints abroad issued by Brigham Young 
and his Apostles, they were urged to bring with them to Utah seeds 
of rare plants, “everything that will please the eye, gladden the 
heart, or cheer the soul of man, that grows upon the face of the 
whole earth,’ as well as birds, cotton, wool, flax, and silk ma- 
chinery, or models for such machinery so that it could be con- 
structed in the valley. An effort was also made to convert 
weavers and wool carders, so that home industry might be bene- 
fited by their association with the Church. The emigrants were 
also urged to bring with them a copy of every valuable treatise 


29 Statistics of immigration from Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake 
Valley, by James Linforth, p. 167. 
80 4 Journey to Great Salt Lake City, by Jules Remy, vol. 1, p. 199. 


SINAI 273 


on education, book, map, chart, or diagram they could obtain, for 
use in educating the children, because text books were almost as 
scarce as teachers in Salt Lake City. “We alSo want,’ read one 
epistle, “‘all kinds of mathematical and philosophical instruments, 
together with all rare specimens of natural curiosities and works 
of art, that can be gathered and brought to the valley—where, 
and from which, the rising generation can receive instruction; 
and if the saints will be diligent in these matters, we will soon 
have the best, the most useful and attractive museum on earth.” 
A library of 2,000 volumes for which Congress had appropriated 
the money was dragged across the plains in 1852 by ox-teams. 
In the same year Wilford Woodruff brought to Utah two tons 
of school books. In 1851 a man brought a grand piano, care- 
fully packed in straw, which he left during the winter on a bank 
of the Platte River, calling for it the following spring. Women 
brought as part of their luggage toasting-irons, waffle-irons, and 
gridirons, 

The steady stream of emigration, beginning each spring and 
ending at Salt Lake City in the autumn, began to make the city 
a busy place. The population of Utah was doubled in a few years, 
and in 1856, before the Mormons had been in the Territory ten 
years, their census gave the population as 76,335, of which there 
was a surplus of about two thousand women over men. This 
census was taken by the Mormons, and since they were interested 
in showing a large enough population to entitle them to a state 
government, it has been claimed that they counted oxen, cows, 
the dead, the prospective children of couples who were engaged 
and would be expected to have children after they were married, 
and the children that some married people should have had in the 
estimation of the census takers. However, most estimates agree 
that the population of Brigham Young’s domain after ten years~ 
approached 60,000. | 

A brass band usually went out to greet the emigrants as they 
arrived near Salt Lake City, and frequently Brigham Young 
accompanied the party of welcome; anti-polygamists have always 
intimated that his purpose was to look over the new arrivals 
among the women, with an eye to future wives, but there is no 
real evidence of this propensity. Often the emigration parties 
were late, and then teams were sent out with extra provisions to 
bring them in rapidly and save them from the hardships of winter 
in the mountains. 


274, BRIGHAM YOUNG 


There was one disastrous emigration experience which was not 
forgotten for generations in Utah. In 1855, the year of its most 
serious crop failure, the colony found itself short of money and 
supplies. Large sums had been spent by the Church to build up 
the new community and to import its population. Brigham Young 
therefore found it necessary to economize, and he decided that 
instead of the more expensive ox-teams with prairie schooners, 
he would bring emigrants to Utah by supplying them with hand- 
carts, which he designed himself. These were small, light struc- 
tures, which were loaded with luggage and pulled by the men and 
women themselves. A hand-cart would hold the clothing of the 
emigrant, or his baby and clothing, but very little else. The men 
and women walked beside their carts while one man pulled each 
cart, instead of riding in covered waggons. ‘This sounded unat- 
tractive, but the elders preached the opinion of Brigham Young 
that the exercise would be beneficial and the speed greater. After 
the first party of hand-cart emigrants had arrived in Utah, Brig- 
ham Young wrote in a letter to England: “It is worthy of notice, 
that almost all the sisters who have this season crossed the Plains 
in the hand-carts, have got husbands; they are esteemed for their 
perseverance. I doubt not but many of their friends in England 
are already informed of this fact.” He also suggested to the 
elders in charge of emigration that the hand-cart emigrants bring 
nothing with them except what they needed to wear on the jour- 
ney and their food. “Thus you will perceive,’ he wrote, “the 
money usually spent in England for extra clothing and unneces- 
sary ‘fiddle-faddles’—for extra freight on the same, and for haul- 
ing this across the Plains, can all be saved; and most assuredly 
may be more profitably used on the arrival of the Saints here.” 
To reinforce his argument in favor of his hand-carts, and to 
combat the objection that they did not hold enough, Brigham 
Young said in a sermon: 


“T count the hand-cart operation a successful one, and there is a 
lesson in it which the people have overlooked. What is it? Let me 
ask the sisters and brethren here, what better off are you to-day, 
than as though you had started with a bundle under your arm? 
You started with an abundance, but have you any oxen, or’ waggons, 
or trunks of valuable clothing, or money? ‘No.’ What have you 
got? A sister says, ‘I have the underclothes I wore on the Plains, 
and a dress, and a handkerchief which I pinned over my head in 
the absence of my sun bonnets which were worn out, and | am here.’ 


SINAI 275 


Are you here? ‘Yes.’ Did you come across the Plains? ‘Yes.’ 
Do you feel bad? ‘O, no; I feel pretty well.’ Now reflect, what 
else do we want of you, and what else do you wwant of yourselves? 
‘Why,’ says one, ‘I want a dress and a pair of shoes.’ Well, go to 
work, and earn them, and put them on and wear them. ‘I want a 
bonnet.’ Go to work and earn it, and then wear it as you used to do. 

“What do you want here but yourselves? Nothing, but yourselves 
and your religion; that is all you want to bring here. If you come 
naked and barefooted, (1 would not care if you had naught but a 
deer skin around you when you arrive here) and bring your God 
and your religion, you are a thousand times better than if you come 
with waggon loads of silver and gold and left your God behind. If 
I want to take a wife from among the sisters who came in with the 
hand-cart trains, | would rather take one that had nothing, and say 
to her, I will throw a buckskin around you for the present, come 
into my house, I have plenty, or, if I have not, I can get plenty.” *+ 


A Hand-Cart Song was composed by one of the Mormons and 
sung by the emigrants to emphasize the advantages of that mode 
of travel: 


HAND-CART SONG 


Tune—A Little More Cider. 


Chorus: Hurrah for the Camp of Israel! 
Hurrah for the hand-cart scheme! 
_ Hurrah! hurrah! ’tis better far 
Than the wagon and ox-team. 


Oh, our faith goes with the hand-carts, 
And they have our hearts best love; 

*Tis a novel mode of travelling, 
Devised by the Gods above. 


And Brigham’s their executive, 
He told us the design; 

And the Saints are proudly marching on, 
Along the hand-cart line. 


Who cares to go with the wagons? 
Not we who are free and strong; 

Our faith and arms, with a right good will, 
Shall pull our carts along. . 


31 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 203. 


276 -- BRIGHAM YOUNG 


The first group of hand-cart emigrants left Liverpool in 1856. 
There were I,300 men, women, and children, and at Winter Quar- 
ters they divided into five companies. The first of these left early 
and arrived safely in Utah, with no more than the ordinary hard- 
ships of such a long walk, but the last companies left late in 
August, and by the time they arrived in the mountains the weather 
was cold and their provisions were practically exhausted. An 
Oregon traveler who met one of the companies described them: 


“We met two trains, one of thirty and the other of fifty carts, 
averaging about six to the cart. The carts were generally drawn 
by one man and three women each, though some carts were drawn 
by women alone. There were about three women to one man, and 
two-thirds of the women single. It was the most motley crew I 
ever beheld. Most of them were Danes, with a sprinkling of Welsh, 
Swedes, and English, and were generally from the lower classes of 
their countries. Most could not understand what we said to them. 
The road was lined for a mile behind the train with the lame, halt, 
sick, and needy. Many were quite aged, and would be going slowly 
along, supported by a son or daughter. Some were on crutches ; now 
and then a mother with a child in her arms and two or three hang- 
ing hold of her, with a forlorn appearance, would pass slowly along; 
others, whose condition entitled them to a seat in a carriage, were 
wending their way through the sand. A few seemed in good spirits.” 


It is easy to imagine the depression of these people, pulling 
along their food and belongings in thoroughly new and startlingly 
wild surroundings, unable to enjoy even the comfort of small talk 
with those whom they met, alert for dangers that required con- 
stant presence of mind, and wondering about the nature of the 
life they were about to lead. When the cold overtook them, 
many froze to death in the mountains. Dysentery became an 
epidemic, and food being scarce) they killed their few cattle. Thir- 
teen in one party were found frozen to death one morning and 
were buried hurriedly in a hole covered with willows and dirt. 
Parties passing that way the following summer found their bones 
scattered about by ravaging wolves. Of the four hundred in 
one division sixty-seven died on the way to Salt Lake City, and 
a few died afterwards from the hardships of the journey. The 
cold was so great that the rivers were filled with floating ice, 
which bruised the shins of the emigrants as they waded across 
pulling their hand-carts. Many of the people sat near the bodies 
of the dead to get from them whatever warmth was left. 


SINAI 277 


Brigham Young rallied his people and rushed teams and pro- 
visions to the suffering emigrants, but all could not be saved. 
He insisted that his hand-cart scheme was a success and blamed 
the disaster entirely on the late start. This was to a certain 
extent true, but it was also true that with waggons the emigrants 
could have carried more food and protected themselves from the 
cold. Brigham Young made this statement concerning the deaths 
in the mountains : 


“Some of those who have died in the hand-cart companies this 
season, I am told, would be singing, and, before the tune was done, 
would drop over and breathe their last; and others would die while 
eating, and with a piece of bread in their hands. I should be pleased 
when the time comes, if we could all depart from this life as easily 
as did those our brethren and sisters. I repeat, it will be a happy 
circumstance, when death overtakes me, if I am privileged to die 
without a groan or struggle, while yet retaining a good appetite for 
food. I speak of these things, to forestall indulgence in a misplaced 
sympathy.” *? 


There was no room for sentimentality in Brigham Young’s 
rugged character; the dead were dead, and would win salvation, 
the greatest of all blessings, and he turned his attention to mak- 
ing the lot of the survivors as comfortable as possible. One of 
the companies arrived on Sunday; news of the arrival was brought 
to Brigham Young in the pulpit as he was delivering his sermon, 
and he dismissed the congregation with these words: 


“When those persons arrive I do not want to see them put into 
houses by themselves. I want to have them distributed in this city 
among the families that have good, comfortable houses; and I wish 
the sisters now before me, and all who know how and can, to nurse 
and wait upon them. ... The afternoon meeting will be omitted, 
for I wish the sisters to go home and prepare to give those who have 
just arrived a mouthful of something to eat, and to wash them, and 
nurse them up. . . . Prayer is good, but when (as on this occasion) 
baked potatoes, and pudding, and milk are needed, prayer will not 
supply their place.” 


Hand-cart emigration was continued for another season to 
show that it could be done, for the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator 
had devised the system, and he must not be allowed to err. How- 


32 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 89. 


278 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


ever, careful precautions were taken with subsequent parties to 
prevent disaster, and teams met them with several thousand 
pounds of flour and a supply of bacon. Finally, the hand-cart 
system was quietly discontinued. 

Although Brigham Young was anxious to increase the popula- 
tion of his territory with laboring men and farmers, he did not 
offer inducements to individuals, and especially to professional 
men. Dr. David Adams, a physician of Illinois, wrote asking 
Brigham Young questions concerning the opportunities and ad- 
vantages of the new colony, and expressed his desire to join the 
Mormons with one hundred of his friends and neighbors, if Brig- 
ham Young’s answers were satisfactory. In his answer Brigham 
Young refused to promise the doctor comfortable prosperity, and 
he remarked: “It was the words of Jesus, ‘leave all and follow 
me.’ ... Shall we then offer inducements of earthly prosperity 
to any man, to unite his destiny with ours? I will answer in the 
words of our Saviour, ‘Seek first the kingdom of heaven and its 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’”” He 
added that at the moment, 1852, the people were prosperous, but 
that he could not guarantee that it would last, “for the Lord 
chasteneth whom he loveth.” ‘The doctor asked, “Is the Valley 
healthy? What diseases are most prevalent?” Brigham Young 
replied: “People die in all countries, in this as well as any other, 
although there is a difference in different countries, in relation to 
sickness and the manner of their death. In the first place, and to 
answer your questions, I do consider this an healthy country, as 
much so as any in which IJ ever lived or traveled; yet when disease 
once gets hold of a person, it is rather apt to terminate one way 
or the other, sooner than in those low countries, where a man may 
always be dying and yet be alive, yet never alive but always 
dying, until some friendly physician shall interpose, and put him 
quietly away, according to the most approved and scientific mode 
practised by the learned M.D.’s. . . . The most prevalent dis- 
eases here are fevers, sometimes called mountain fever, which 
are not very common; child-births; and, during the gold excite- 
ment, yellow fever; the last two, however, work their own cure; 
one by proper nursing, the other by a little hard experience.”” To 
Dr. Adams’s question whether a physician of twenty years’ experi- 
ence could earn a living in Utah, Brigham Young replied that 
cultivating the soil was the most profitable profession, and that 
the physicians in Utah were also seen sawing wood, plowing and 


SINAI 279 


sowing, which was very good for their health. Then he added: 
“As an individual, I am free to acknowledge that I should much 
prefer to die a natural death, to being helped out of the world by 
the most ‘intelligent graduate,’ new or old school, that ever sci- 
entifically flourished the wand of Esculapius, or any of his fol- 
lowers.” 

In spite of their natural disadvantages, the Mormons “attached 
themselves to the soil, and increased with the rapidity of an iso- 
lated germ culture,’ as Professor Riley put it. During their first 
ten years they not only built up cities and settlements, farms and 
roads, but also customs and manners, which they practised openly 
in defiance of the opinion of the rest of mankind. One of these — 
customs was the stern opposition to intoxicating liquor in any 
form, but Artemus Ward in describing the Salt Lake Hotel said: 
“Tt is a temperance hotel. I prefer temperance hotels—altho’ they 
sell worse liquor than any other kind of hotels.’? Another custom 
was the far-famed practice of polygamy, which Brigham Young 
now declared openly and practised extensively. 


Chapter VII 
PURITAN POLYGAMY 


I 


DurtinG the first few years after their arrival in Utah, the fact 
that the Mormons practised polygamy was an open secret. 
Visitors who stopped at Salt Lake City on their way to California, 
and judges who were sent by the federal government to preside in 
the territorial courts, could not help but notice the multiplicity of 
wives, and once noticed, the phenomenon was not one which a 
man was likely to keep to himself. Brigham Young therefore, 
decided in 1852 that the time had come to announce the doctrine | 
* publicly and to take the consequences, for he felt that his com-, 
munity was strong enough and sufficiently isolated to prevent any 
“consequences. Besides, he was weary of whispering what he 
sincerely believed to be divine. Because of the prejudices which 
the very mention of more wives than one aroused in the minds of 
Gentiles and prospective converts, Brigham Young had delayed 
any public pronouncement of Joseph Smith’s revelation. Elders 
abroad were denying every day that the Mormons enjoyed the 
association of more than one wife, although by this time there 
was much tangible evidence in the form of children by polyg- 
amous marriages; the presence of these children was sometimes 
difficult to explain to visitors without either admitting polygamy, 
or admitting what was considered to be worse. 

In 1846 at a conference of the Saints in Manchester, England, 
Parley Pratt had declared polygamy to be “another name for 
whoredom,” and in 1850 at Boulogne, France, John Taylor had 
denied that the theory or practice of polygamy was part of the 
Mormon Church doctrine or ritual. To support this denial he 
had read from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants the revelation 
given to Joseph Smith at Kirtland, in which polygamy was denied 
and denounced. At the moment in 1850 when he was issuing that 
vehement denial at Boulogne John Taylor had four wives in 

280 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 281 


Utah, and was courting a young girl who lived on the Isle of 
Jersey. 

When Brigham Young had finally decided that the time for 
consistency was ripe, he assembled his people in general confer- 
ence at ten o’clock on Sunday morning, August 29, 1852. Pro- 
fessor Orson Pratt opened the meeting with a long explanation 
of the scriptural significance of marriage. He told what God 
had in mind when He created Adam and Eve, and he gave it as 
his earnest opinion that the marriage between those two had been 
for eternity as well as for time. Then he took up the case of 
Abraham and his wife Sarah, who so generously gave her hand- 
maiden Hagar to her husband, but Pratt forgot to mention that 
this gift was actually a loan, for breeding purposes only, and that 
Sarah suddenly said to Abraham one day, “Cast out this bond- 
woman and her son.” Pratt did say that in the case of Hagar 
God’s intentions, whatever Abraham’s may have been, were hon- 
orable, and that He purposed to raise up multitudinous seed so 
that eventually there might be enough to inherit the earth. The 
Mormons, Pratt reminded them, were lineal descendants of Abra- 
ham, and it was their divine duty to act as he had done. This 
sermon, which extended for several hours, consumed the morning 
session; in the afternoon the meeting reconvened to hear the 
revelation on plural marriage read for the first time in public. 
Brigham Young prefaced the rendition with a short explanation 
of how Sister Emma had, in her jealous wrath, burned one copy 
of it, but how, fortunately for posterity, Bishop Whitney had 
preserved the other copy. 

Soon after the publication at home and abroad of the revela- 
tion on polygamy, marriages for time and eternity took place 
without secrecy. Some women were married to their husbands 

for both time and eternity, and in those cases the husbands en- 
\joyed all the marital privileges of this world, and the wives 
enjoyed the husbands’ society in the next. There were also mar- | 
/riages for eternity only. These often took place between a man. 
and a wife who had died, so that he might enjoy her society in’ 
“heaven when he arrived there. Another form of this marriage 
for eternity was the sealing, as marriage ceremonies were called, 
of a woman to Joseph Smith, who was dead, or to Brigham 
Young, for eternity only. It was considered by the elderly women 
of Utah a great and sacred privilege to be the spiritual wife of 
Brigham Young or the Prophet Joseph Smith in the world to 


282 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


come. In this last instance of marriage for eternity, the wife did 
not enjoy the privileges of one in this profane world. There were 
no marriages for time only, unless the wives had engagements to 
other dead husbands for eternity. To marry a woman for time 
only would imply that the husband did not wish the society of 
his wife in the next world, and the relation would therefore have 
been purely temporal, and perhaps purely sensual, which was 
repugnant to the religious sentiment of the community. 

- It was also possible for a woman to obtain a divorce for eternity 
from a husband who had died. George Reynolds, one of the 
leaders of the Church, testified to this privilege of divorce from 
the dead before the United States Senate committee which was 
investigating the right of Reed Smoot to hold his seat in the 
Senate: 


“SENATOR ForAKER: ‘Are these divorce proceedings confined to 
the living? You spoke of marriages after death.’ 

“Mr. REYNOLDS: ‘I have known very rarely of a woman seeking 
to be separated from her husband after he was dead, and the presi- 
dent of the church hearing her statement has directed that the mar- 
riage be canceled on the records. .. 

“SENATOR FoRAKER: ‘I should like to ask another question before 
we get away from the matter. It is about these divorces that are 
granted to women from their husbands who are deceased. Is that 
divorce, in the few cases you have referred to, granted on account 
of something that the man did in lifetime or something he is sup- 
posed to have done after death?’ 

“Mr. Reynotps: ‘In lifetime. We do not know anything they 
do after death.’ 

“SENATOR FoRAKER: ‘The proceeding is taken against him with- 
out making him a party or giving him a chance to be heard?’ 

“Mr. ReEynotps: ‘That is exactly it, and that is why so few have 
been granted, because it has been regarded as unjust to the person 
who could not appear. But when the wife produced evidence suf- 
ficient to cause it to be evident that he had done certain things, mak- 
ing him unworthy of being her husband, then the divorce has some- 
times been granted.’ 

“SENATOR ForAKER: ‘Is anyone appointed to defend the dead 
man in such cases?’ 

“Mr. Reynotps: ‘No, sir.’ 

“SENATOR ForAKER: ‘The proceeding is purely ex parte?’ 

“Mr. ReEyNotps: ‘Purely.’ 

“Mr. TAYLER: “Then the man who dies, the fortunate possessor 
of a half a dozen wives, has no assurance that he will find them at 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 283 


the end; that is to say, the church on earth has the power to dis- 
solve after a man’s death the bonds of matrimony that have tied 
him to several wives?’ 

“Mr. REYNOLDs: ‘Yes, sit.’ 

“THE CHAIRMAN (SENATOR Burrows) : ‘I understand you to say 
that the power exists and is exercised through the president of the 
church ?’ 

“Mr. Reynotps: ‘When exercised, it is exercised through the 
president of the church. He is the only man who has the right to 
seal and to loose.’ ” + 


One would think that Brigham Young would have reserved 
decision on such cases until the parties met in heaven and the 
husband enjoyed the opportunity of answering before God. 

Secrecy, which had at first been a necessity, was now adhered 
to as a rite by the Mormons, who, it must be remembered, had 
also been Masons. The ceremony of sealing was enshrouded in 
secrecy. Brigham Young once insisted in a sermon that a man 
who could not keep a secret, even from his wife or wives, was 
not only an object of ridicule, but one who could never hope to 
enjoy the eternal blessings of the celestial kingdom: 


“Do some men know something that you cannot tell your wives?” 
he asked. “‘O, I have received something in the endowment that 
I dare not tell my wife, and I do not know how to do it.’ The man 
who cannot know millions of things that he would not tell his wife, 
will never be crowned in the celestial kingdom, never, NEVER, 
NEVER. It cannot be; it is impossible. And that man who can- 
not know things without telling any other living being upon the 
earth, who cannot keep his secrets and those that God reveals to 
him, never can receive the voice of his Lord to dictate him and the 
people on this earth.” ? | 


Gibbon has described the results of the secrecy practised by the 
early Christians in words which apply almost exactly to the re- 
sults of Mormon secret ceremonies : 


“Tt was concluded that they only concealed what they would have 
blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an oppor- 
tunity for malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, 


1 Proceedings before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United 
States Senate in the Matter of the Protests against the Right of Hon. Reed 
Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat, vol. 2, pp. 28-29. 

2 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 287. 


284 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked 
of human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every abomina- 
tion that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who solicited the 
favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. 
There were many who pretended to confess or to relate the cere- 
monies of this abhorred society. It was asserted, ‘that a new-born in- 
fant, entirely covered over with flour, was presented, like some mystic 
symbol of initiation, to the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly 
inflicted many a secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of 
his error; that as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sec- 
taries drank up the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering mem- 
bers, and pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual con- 
sciousness of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed that this inhuman 
sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which in- 
temperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the ap- 
pointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame was 
banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might direct, the 
darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous commerce of 
sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers.’ ” 


The details of the confessions and narratives of apostate Mor- 
mons and of professional authors, who claimed to have obtained 
their details from people who had received in the Endowment 
House the rites of sealing for time and eternity, were almost as 
lurid, though much less picturesque, as those which Gibbon quotes 
from Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and Tertullian. 

The polygamous marriage ceremony performed by Brigham 
Young in the Endowment House consisted of the ordinary mar- 
riage ceremony, with the exception that the first wife stood 
beside her husband and his new wife, and was asked if she con- 
sented to give her husband an additional wife. This consent 
was a formality, almost as superfluous as the question whether a 
man and woman take each other for husband and wife; usually, 
if the first wife had any objections, she was left at home during 
the ceremony. After this formality Brigham Young pronounced 
the man and woman sealed to each other for time and eter- 
nity. 

The Endowment ceremony was quite different from that of 
marriage, and was presented in the form of an allegory; it is this 
scene which has given rise to many lurid, paper-covered pam- 
phlets concerning the sexual secrets of Mormon knavery. At the 
ceremony the man and woman appeared in white shifts, with 
oiled hair and cleansed bodies, the oiling and cleansing, all in- 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 285 


nuendo to the contrary, being performed by male and female 
Mormons respectively in separate parts of the Endowment House. 
The couple then joined each other and entered a room, fitted up 
to represent the Garden of Eden, with a Devil, and a voice that 
played the part of God. It was a very amateurish and a very 
crude ceremonial, designed to instil the fear of the Lord and re- 
spect for His wishes, by means of an allegorical representation 
of the tale of Adam and Eve and the serpent. It was all sexually 
symbolic, but there was in it nothing in the nature of the primi- 
tive orgy which the heated imaginations of anti-Mormons have 
represented it to be. Even anti-Mormons have only stated that 
it was a primitive orgy, for their imaginations were not suff- 
ciently powerful to supply the details, which they always hid be- 
hind a false decorum. 

Combined with this allegory was an oath to avenge the death 
of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, and it has been said that 
with this oath was combined the pledge to cherish enmity against 
the government of the United States until it did something about 
those deaths. Mormons, on the plea that to reveal the secrets of 
the Endowment ceremony was to break a most solemn covenant 
never to tell them, have always refused either to affirm or to deny 
the existence of such an oath. 

When they received their endowments of celestial, eternal hap- 
piness, Mormons received a garment which was always to be 
worn next to the skin. It resembled very much the type of under- 
wear known as a combination, and was fastened with strings at 
various places. Over the breast was a mystic sign, differing for 
man and woman. The garment was supposed to protect the 
wearer from danger to his or her life, and some of Joseph Smith’s 
followers maintain that the only reason why the bullets fired at 
him were able to penetrate his body was his neglect to wear his 
Endowment garment that day. 

The Endowment oath prescribed that if the covenant not to 
reveal the details of the ceremony was broken, the apostate was 
to have his bowels torn out and trampled under foot, his throat 
cut from ear to ear, and his tongue ripped from his mouth. This, 
however, was more impressive than practicable, for there is no 
trustworthy record of bowels that were torn out and trampled 
under foot, throats that were cut from ear to ear, or tongues 
that were ripped from tattling mouths; and enough people did tell 
about the Endowment ceremonies to supply sufficient victims. 


286 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


The recklessness to carry out their horrible threats seems to have 
been lacking in the Mormon authorities. 

Some one said of the Mormons that their creed was singular 
and their wives plural. One of the features of the Mormon mar- 
riage system which has been somewhat obscured in the emphasis 
that has always been placed on its plurality is the elaborate excuse 
which the Mormon theologians invented for the extensive repro- 
ductive activities of their people. According to the Mormon 
theory, God instituted polygamy solely for the purpose of multi- 
plying the number of the righteous, and not to satisfy the carnal 
desires of man. A large part of the Mormon celestial world is 
inhabited by spirits, who go about, like Maeterlinck’s souls of the 
unborn in The Blue Bird, searching for tabernacles. It is abso- 
lutely necessary to their eventual resurrection that these spirits 
should have tabernacles, or earthly bodies. Brigham Young once 
described their pitiable situation : 


“The spirits which are reserved have to be born in the world, and 
the Lord will prepare some way for them to have tabernacles. 
Spirits must be born, even if they have to come to brothels for their 
fleshly coverings, and many of them will take the lowest and mean- 
est spirit house that there is in the world, rather than do without, 
and will say, ‘Let me have a tabernacle, that I may have a chance 
to be perfected.’ 

“The Lord has instituted this plan for a holy purpose, and not 
with a design to afflict or distress the people; hence an important 
and imperative duty is placed upon all holy men and women, and 
the reward will follow, for it is said, that the children will add to 
our honor and glory... .” 


In the same sermon he outlined the advantages of many wives, 
from the point of view of capacity to carry out this holy duty: 


“God never introduced the Patriarchal order of marriage with a 
view to please man in his carnal desires, nor to punish females for 
anything which they had done; but He introduced it for the express 
purpose of raising up to His name a royal Priesthood, a peculiar 
people. Do we not see the benefit of it? Yes, we have lived long 
enough to realize its advantages. 

“Suppose that I had had the privilege of having only one wife, 
I should have had only three sons, for those are all my first wife 
pore whereas, I now [1855] have buried five sons, and have thirteen 
iving. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 287 


“Tt is obvious that I could not have been blessed with such a 
family, if I had been restricted to one wife, but, by the introduction 
of this law, I can be the instrument of preparing tabernacles for 
those spirits which have come in this dispensation. . . .” 


Brigham Young made a mistake in this sermon, for his first wife 
bore two daughters and not three sons, but the extent of. his 
family life, as we shall see, was a bit confusing. He was always 
certain, however, of one thing, in his sermons at least, and that 
was the purity of plural marriage, and the necessity for righteous 
men to do their duty, though all the wicked world raged. In this 
same sermon he said: 


“T foresaw when Joseph first made known this doctrine, that it 
would be a trial, and a source of great care and anxiety to the 
brethren, and what of that? We are to gird up our loins and fulfill 


. this, just as we would any other duty. 


~“Tt has been strenuously urged by many that this doctrine was 
introduced through lust, but that is a gross misrepresentation. 

“This revelation, which God gave to Joseph, was for the express 
purpose of providing a channel for the organization of tabernacles, 
for those spirits to occupy who have been reserved to come forth 
in the kingdom of God, and that they might not be obliged to take 
tabernacles out of the kingdom of God. ... 

“T am aware that care and other duties are greatly increased by 
the law which I am remarking upon; this I know by experience, 
yet though it adds to our care and labor, we should say, ‘Not my 
will, but thine, O Lord, be done.’ ... 

“The Lord intended that our family cares should be greater; He 
knew they would be, yet He is able to bless us in proportion. I 
know quite a number of men in this Church who will not take any 
“more women, because they do not wish to take care of them; a con- 
tracted spirit causes that feeling. I have also known some in my 
past life, who have said, that they did not desire to have their wives 
bear any children, and some even take measures to prevent it; there 
are a few such persons in this Church. 

“When J see a man in this Church with those feelings, and hea 
him say, “I do not wish to enlarge my family, because it will bring 
care upon me,’ I conclude that he has more or less of the old sec- 
tarian leaven about him, and that he does not understand the glory 
of the celestial kingdom. ... ; 

“Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue 
to do so, I promise that you will be damned; and I will go still | 
further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the 


288 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Lord has given, and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you 
will be damned.” * 


Brigham Young insisted that it was not only man’s duty to 
multiply his wives, but that if he did not do so, the one wife 
would be taken away from him in heaven and given to some one 
who had obeyed the commands of the Lord. And, so far as the 
women were concerned, they could not attain to all the privileges 
of the celestial kingdom if they remained unmarried or refused 
to obey their husbands. The Mormon said to his prospective 
wives, “I will give you the keys of heaven,” and the women were 
so terrified at the prospect of being locked out that they accepted | 
the husband. Heber Kimball once said in the pulpit: 


“In the spirit world there is an increase of males and females, 
there are millions of them, and if I am faithful all the time, and 
continue right along with Brother Brigham, we will go to Brother 
Joseph, and say, ‘Here we are, Brother Joseph; we are here our- 
selves are we not, with none of the property we possessed in our 
probationary state, not even the rings on our fingers?’ He will say 
to us, ‘Come along, my boys, we will give you a good suit of 
clothes. Where are your wives?’ ‘They are back yonder; they 
would not follow us.’ ‘Never mind,’ says Joseph, ‘here are thou- 
sands, have all you want.’ Perhaps some do not believe that, but 
I am just simple enough to believe it.” * 


This system of feminine salvation through attachment to a 
husband seems to have impressed some of the women with the 
fact that they could do anything so long as they were sealed to 
Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, or one of the other leaders of the 
Church. Jedediah M. Grant, one of Brigham Young’s first coun- 
selors, refuted this error in a sermon: 


“Men and women are saved because they do right. It is non- 
sense for a woman to suppose, that because she is sealed to some 
particular man she will be saved, and at the same time kick up 
hell’s delight, play the whore, and indulge in other evil acts and 
abominations. 

“Even some mothers in Israel actually suppose that if their 
daughters are sealed to a certain man they will be saved, no matter 
what they do afterwards. That is damned foolery; and I want men 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, pp. 264-266. 
4 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 209. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 289 


and women to understand that salvation is based on a better founda- 


tion, that it is made up of righteousness, joy, and peace in the 
Holy Ghost.’ ® 


The Mormons used to cling tenaciously to the Bible precedents 
for their practice of polygamy. Heber Kimball once said that he 
looked forward with joy to meeting and associating with Abra-‘ 
‘ham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other famous polygamists, whom he/ 
‘was sure he would meet in the next world. Abraham, by his 
é€xample, was particularly useful to the Mormons. Orson Hyde 
once asked this rhetorical question in the pulpit: “Are we Abra- 
ham’s seed, or are we bastards and not sons? ‘That is the ques- 
tion.” But the example of Abraham was one time a temporary 
embarrassment to Brigham Young. G. D. Watt, the reporter of 
the Church sermons, came to Salt Lake City from Scotland with 
his half-sister. He called upon Brigham Young and asked: to be 
married to her. Brigham Young objected on the grounds that 
the relationship was too close, and Watt pointed out that Sarah 
had been the half-sister of Abraham, and he “reckoned he had 
just as much right as Abraham.” Brigham Young was impressed 
with this argument; it is said that he tried to solve the difficulty 
by marrying the lady himself for a few weeks. But he finally 
came to the conclusion that what Abraham did was legal in the 
latter days, and it is said he married Watt to his half-sister.® 

But, in spite of their distinguished precedents from the Old 
Testament, Mormon polygamy outraged the Gentile sense of de- 
cency, because the ideals of the Christian world since the publica- 
tion of the New Testament had been virginity and celibacy. In 
the early Christian church marriage was regarded as an unfortu- 
nate necessity at best, and the most pious people were those who 
avoided it altogether by becoming priests or nuns. For hundreds 
of years this attitude was carried on by the veneration and re- 
spect showered upon the virginity of Mary and the celibacy of 
Jesus. It was somewhat natural that the Mormons should shock 
their Christian neighbors, for they insisted that marriage was 
not only a sacred act, but a divine duty, and compulsory to salva- 
tion. This was revolutionary to the theology of the time, for 
even those Christian sects which permitted marriage among the 
clergy were forced to admit that no man was a priest to his own 


5 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 128. 
6 Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs, by John Hyde, Jun., pp. 56-57. 


290 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


wife. The Mormons grasped the bull by the horns and not only 
recognized but sanctified the relationship of the two sexes. In 
order to establish precedents, the Mormons searched not only the 
Old Testament, but also the New Testament, and they usually 
found what they were looking for. When a congressman said in 
a speech that monogamy was divine, because Adam and Eve were 
monogamous, William Hooper, the Mormon territorial delegate 
in Congress, answered: “As for the illustrious example quoted of 
our first parents, all that can be said of their marriage is, that it 
was exhaustive. Adam married all the women in the world.” 

One would think that the Mormon elders would have had diff- 
culty when they came to the New Testament, but it was not so. 
Occasionally clergymen of other denominations pointed out pas- 
sages in the New Testament which seemed to forbid plural mar- 
riage to holy men. The most useful of these to the anti-polyga- 
mists was that contained in the third chapter of Paul’s first epistle 
to Timothy, in the course of which he wrote: “This is a true 
saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good 
work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, 
vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to 
teach... .’ Brigham Young’s exegesis of this passage was in- 
genious, if not altogether convincing : 


“Instead of my believing for a moment that Paul wished to sig- 
nify to Timothy that he must select a man to fill the office of a 
Bishop that would have but one wife, I believe directly the reverse; 
but his advice to Timothy amounts simply to this—It would not 
be wise for you to ordain a man to the office of a Bishop unless 
he has a wife; you must not ordain a single or unmarried man to 
that calling. ... 

“T will now give you my reasons why it is necessary that a Bishop 
should have a wife, not but that he may have more than one wife. 
In the first place he is, or should be, like a father to his ward, or to 
the people over whom he presides, and a good portion of his time 
is occupied among them... . 

“Paul, knowing by observation and his own experience the temp- 
tations that were continually thrown before the Elders, gave in- 
structions paramount to this—Before you ordain a person to be a 
Bishop, to take the charge of a Branch in any one district or place, 
see that he has a wife to begin with; he did not say, ‘but one wife’; 
it does not read so; but he must have one to begin with, in order 
that he may not be continually drawn into temptation while he is 
in the line of his duty, visiting the houses of widows and orphans, 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 291 


the poor, the afflicted, and the sick in his ward. He is to con- 
verse with families, sometimes upon family matters, and care for 
them, but if he has no wife, he is not so capable of taking care of 
a family as he otherwise would be, and perhaps he is not capable 
of taking care of himself. Now select a young man who has pre- 
served himself in purity and holiness, one who has carried himself 
circumspectly before the people, and before God; it would not do 
to ordain him to the office of Bishop, for he may be drawn into 
temptation, and he lacks experience in family matters; but take a 
man who has one wife at least, a man of experience, like thousands 
of our Elders, men of strength of mind, who have determination in 
them to preserve themselves pure under all circumstances, at all 
times, and in all places in their wards. Now, Timothy, select such 
a man to be a Bishop.” ? 


Brigham Young seized upon other statements of Paul for use 
in defense of polygamy: 


“T would now call your attention to some of the sayings of the 
Apostle Paul. I hope that you will not stumble at them. Paul says: 
‘Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the 
woman without the man in the Lord, for as the woman is of the 
man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God.’ 
The same apostle also says, ‘The woman is the glory of the man.’ 
Now, brethren, these are Paul’s sayings, not Joseph Smith’s spiritual 
wife system sayings. 

“And I would say, as no man can be perfect without the woman, 
sO no woman can be perfect without a man to lead her, I tell you 
the truth as it is in the bosom of eternity; and I say so to every 
man upon the face of the earth; if he wishes to be saved, he cannot 
be saved without a woman by his side. This is spiritual wifeism, 
that is the doctrine of spiritual wives.” § 


Brigham Young would have agreed with Benjamin Franklin, who 
once referred to man without woman as “the odd half of a pair 
of scissors.” 

The Mormons were not content with appropriating Saint 
Paul for the defense of their doctrine. They went higher and 
took Jesus himself as an example. In discussing the wives of 
Jesus, Orson Pratt said: “The Evangelists do not particularly 
speak of the marriage of Jesus; but this is not to be wondered at, 
for St. John says: ‘There are also many other things which Jesus 


7 Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, pp. 88-89. 
8 New-York Messenger, vol. 2, no. 10, pp. 75-76. 


292 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that 
even the world itself could not contain the books that should be 
written.’’’ Orson Pratt was sure, however, that some of these 
unwritten things concerned the wives of Jesus, and he offered 
this argument: ‘‘One thing is certain, that there were several holy 
women that greatly loved Jesus—such as Mary, and Martha, her 
sister, and Mary Magdalene; and Jesus greatly loved them, and 
associated with them much; and when he arose from the dead, 
instead of first showing Himself to His chosen witnesses, the 
Apostles, He appeared first to these women, or at least to one of 
them, namely, Mary Magdalene. Now it would be very natural \ 
for a husband in the resurrection to appear first to his own dear » 
wives, and afterwards show himself to his other friends. If all 
the acts of Jesus were written, we, no doubt, should learn that 
these beloved women were his wives.” Orson Hyde went even 
further than Orson Pratt on this subject. He traced a definite 
marriage, a suspicion, and offered a prediction: 


“Tt will be borne in mind that once on a time, there was a mar- 
riage in Cana of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that trans- 
action, it will be discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ 
was married on that occasion. If he was never married, his intimacy 
with Mary and Martha, and the other Mary also whom Jesus loved 
must have been highly unbecoming and improper to say the best of it. 

“T will venture to say that if Jesus Christ were now to pass 
through the most pious countries in Christendom with a train 
of women, such as used to follow him, fondling about him, combing 
his hair, anointing him with precious ointment, washing his feet 
with tears, and wiping them with the hair of their heads and un- 
married, or even married, he would be mobbed, tarred, and feath- 
ered, and rode, not on an ass, but on a rail.” 1° 


Jedediah M. Grant quoted Celsus to prove that Jesus was perse- 
cuted because of the number of his wives: 


“What does old Celsus say, who was a physician in the first cen- 
tury, whose medical works are esteemed very highly at the present 
time. His works on theology were burned with fire by the Catholics, 
they were so shocked at what they called their impiety. Celsus was 
a heathen philosopher; and what does he say upon the subject of 
Christ and his Apostles, and their belief? He says, ‘The grand 


® The Seer, vol. 1, no. 8, p. 150. 
10 Journal of Discourses, ae 4, Pp. 259-260. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 293 


reason why the Gentiles and philosophers of his school persecuted 
Jesus Christ, was, because he had so many wives; there were 
Elizabeth, and Mary, and a host of others that followed him.’ ... 
A belief in the doctrine of plurality of wives caused the persecu- 
tions of Jesus and his followers. We might almost think they were 
‘Mormons.’ ” 74 


Brigham Young and his disciples believed not only that Jesus - 
had wives, but also that he had children. In several sermons on 
“the marriage relation Orson Hyde defended himself from the 

charge of blasphemy because of his statements concerning Jesus’s 
family: 


“Mr. Hyde, do you really wish to imply that the immaculate 
Saviour begat children? It is a blasphemous assertion against the 
purity of the Saviour’s life, to say the least of it. The holy aspira- 
tions that ever ascended from him to his Father would never allow 
him to have any such fleshly and carnal connexions, never, no never.’ 
This is the general idea; but the Saviour never thought it beneath 
him to obey the mandate of his Father; he never thought this stoop- 
ing beneath his dignity ; he never despised what God had made; for 
they are bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. . . .” 

“T discover,” he said in another sermon, “that some of the Eastern 
papers represent me as a great blasphemer, because I said, in my 
lecture on Marriage, at our last Conference, that Jesus Christ was 
married at Cana of Galilee, that Mary, Martha, and others were his 
wives, and that he begat children. 

“All that I have to say in reply to that charge is this—they wor- 
ship a Saviour that is too pure and holy to fulfill the commands of 
his Father. I worship one that is just pure and holy enough ‘to 
fulfill all righteousness’; not only the righteous law of baptism, but 
the still more righteous and important law ‘to multiply and replenish 
the earth.’ Startle not at this! for even the Father himself honored 
that law by coming down to Mary, without a natural body, and 
begetting a son; and if Jesus begat children, he only ‘did that which 
he had seen his Father do.’”’ 7? 


Brigham Young once delivered a sermon in which he told his 
people once for all the relative positions of the Father, the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost, which has perplexed mankind for so many 
centuries since the birth of Christ. Brigham Young insisted that 
Adam was a God, that he entered the Garden of Eden with Eve, 


11 Journal of Discourses, vol. I, p. 345. 
12 Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 79; p. 210, 


294 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“one of his wives,” and that they only became mortal after 
eating the forbidden fruit. Adam, according to Brigham Young, 
was also the temporal father of Jesus Christ, while his spiritual 
father was the Father of all of us. Adam occupied great im- 
portance in Brigham Young’s theogony, for besides being a God 
he was also Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days: “He 
is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom WE 
have to do.” This creation of Adam as a God caused a sensation 
among people who had always been accustomed to regard him as 
the first sinner. Brigham Young was insistent upon another 
point in this connection: the Holy Ghost was not the father of 
Jesus Christ, for the Holy Ghost, he said, was the Spirit of the 
Lord, and as such he was in no position to beget children, while 
Adam was the Lord in the flesh and was fully capable of father- 
hood. “Now, remember,’ Brigham Young said, “from this time 
forth, and for ever, that Jesus Christ was not begotten by the 
Holy Ghost. I will repeat a little anecdote. I was in conversation 
with a certain learned professor upon this subject, when I replied, 
to this idea—‘if the Son was begotten by the Holy Ghost, it would 
be very dangerous to baptize and confirm females, and give the 
Holy Ghost to them, lest he should beget children, to be palmed 
upon the Elders by the people, bringing the Elders into great dif- 
ficulties,”’ ** 

These theological nuances which Brigham Young and his asso- 
ciates developed in connection with their defense of polygamy 
shocked their generation, and merely served to confirm in the 
minds of their contemporaries that these men were wicked and 
theoretically blasphemous as well as practically lecherous ; whereas, 
the Mormons were honestly giving free rein to the simplicity of 
their own minds. 


II 


When polygamy was proclaimed openly by Brigham Young, 
some of the Saints refused to accept it, and believed that its 
proclamation meant that their elders had fallen from grace. The 
leader of this party was Gladden Bishop, and those who were of 
his opinion soon came to be known as Gladdenites. Gladden 
Bishop had been excommunicated and received back into the 
Church thirteen times. This opposition from within the fold 


13 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp. 50-51. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 295 


infuriated Brigham Young, and he dealt with it in a sermon in 
these words: 


“When I went from meeting, last Sabbath, my ears were saluted 
with an apostate crying in the streets here. I want to know if any 
of you who has got the spirit of ‘Mormonism’ in you, the spirit that 
Joseph and Hyrum had, or that we have here, would say, Let us 
hear both sides of the question, let us listen, and prove all things? 
What do you want to prove that an old apostate, who has been cut 
off from the Church thirteen times for lying, is anything worthy of 
notice ? 

“T heard that a certain gentleman, a picture maker in this city, 
when the boys would have moved away the waggon in which this 
apostate was standing, become violent with them, saying, Let this 
man alone, these are Saints that are persecuting (sneeringly). We 
want such a man to go to California, or anywhere they choose. I 
say to those persons, you must not court persecution here, lest you 
get so much of it you will not know what to do with it. DO NOT 
court persecution. 

“We have known Gladden Bishop for more than twenty years, 

and know him to be a poor, dirty curse. Here is sister Vilate Kim- 
ball, brother Heber’s wife, has borne more from that man than any 
other woman on earth could bear; but she won’t bear it again. . . 
I say to you Bishops, do not allow them to preach in your wards. 
Who broke the roads to these valleys? Did this little nasty Smith, 
and his wife? No, they stayed in St. Louis while we did it, peddling 
ribbons, and kissing Gentiles. I know what they have done here— 
they have asked exorbitant prices for their nasty stinking ribbons. 
(Voices, “That’s true.’) We broke the roads to this country. Now, 
you Gladdenites, keep your tongues still, lest sudden destruction 
come upon you. 

“T will tell you a dream that I had last night. I dreamed that I 
was in the midst of a people who were dressed in rags and tatters, 
they had turbans upon their heads, and these were also hanging in 
tatters. The rags were of many colors, and, when the people moved, 
they were all in motion. Their object in this appeared to be, to 
attract attention. Said they to me, ‘We are Mormons, brother 
Brigham.’ ‘No, you are not,’ I replied. ‘But we have been,’ said 
they, and they began to jump, and caper about, and dance, and their 
rags of many colors were all in motion, to attract the attention of 
the people. I said, ‘You are no Saints, you are a disgrace to them.’ 
Said they, ‘We have been Mormons’ By and bye along came some 
mobocrats, and they greeted them with, ‘How do you do, sir, I am 
happy to see you.’ I felt ashamed of them, for they were in my 
eyes a disgrace to ‘Mormonism.’ Then I saw two ruffans, whom 


296 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


I knew to be mobbers and murderers, and they crept into a bed, 
where one of my wives and children were. I said, “You that call 
yourselves brethren, tell me, is this the fashion among you?’ They 
said, ‘O, they are good men, they are gentlemen.’ With that, I took 
my large bowie knife, that I used to wear as a bosom pin in Nauvoo, 
and cut one of their throats from ear to ear, saying, ‘Go to hell 
across lots.’ The other one said, ‘You dare not serve me so.’ [ 
instantly sprang at him, seized him by the hair of the head, and, 
bringing him down, cut his throat, and sent him after his comrade; 
then told them both, if they would behave themselves, they should 
yet live, but if they did not, I would unjoint their necks. At this 
I awoke. 

“T say, rather than that apostates should flourish here, I will 
unsheath my bowie knife, and conquer or die. (Great commotion 
in the congregation, and a simultaneous burst of feeling, assenting 
to the declaration.) Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judg- 
ment will be put to the line—and righteousness to the plummet. 
(Voices generally, ‘Go it, go it.’) If you say it is right, raise your 
hands. (All hands up.) Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in 
this, and every good work.” +* | 


The meetings of the Gladdenites were arbitrarily broken up, but 
they themselves, in spite of all threats, were allowed to live in the 
city uninjured. Soon, however, most of them disappeared, some 
going to California and some rejoining the Church. 

The publication of the revelation on polygamy, and the open 
acknowledgment of its practice started a long period of vehement 
hostility to the Mormons. Dr. Bernhisel, the Mormon delegate 
to Congress, remarked that when the doctrine of plural wives was 
preached openly, the cat was let out of the bag, to which Brigham 
Young and Heber Kimball remarked that the cat had many kit- 
tens, which would always be a source of antagonism, for “Christ 
and Satan never can be friends; light and darkness will always 
remain opposites.”’ It became the general opinion in the eastern 
states that polygamists were some species of beast, not at all 
resembling other forms of humanity, except in general, deceptive 
appearance. We find this attitude applied even to the offspring 
of polygamists: ‘““Mr. Hart was the son of polygamous parents,” 
wrote Charles W. Hemmenway in his Memoirs of My Day, “and 
yet he was a most exemplary, intelligent, and companionable 
young gentleman.” The doctrine of plural marriage has always 
been called by the more picturesque and less polished of its 


14 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp. 82-83. 


— Ue 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 297 


enemies the doctrine of “spiritual wifery.” Those who opposed 
it could see in polygamy only a violent form of adultery, which 
was all the more reprehensible because it was practised gti 
and defended brazenly. 

The Mormon point of view was entirely the reverse, for adult 
tery to the Mormons was the worst crime a man could commit 
‘except murder. They distinguished between polygamy and adul- 
tery by reference to the life of King David. All David’s wives, 
they said, were sacred and legal, but when he appropriated the 
wife of Uriah, he committed adultery, and God punished him for 
it. The Mormons believed that the penalty for adultery should, 
be death. Howard Egan shot and killed his wife’s sedueer, 
James Monroe. In his speech defending Egan, George A. Smith 
said that the principle of the Mormon community was, “The man 
who seduces his neighbor’s wife must die, and her nearest rela- 
tive must kill him.” Brigham Young agreed with this principle 
and promulgated it in a sermon, but he offered a mitigation of it 
to the consideration of his people: 


“Let me suppose a case. Suppose you found your brother in 
bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them, you 
would be justified, and they would atone for their sins, and be 
received into the kingdom of God. I would at once do so in such 
a case; and under such circumstances, I have no wife I love so well 
that I would not put a javelin through her heart, and I would do 
it with clean hands. But you who trifle with your covenants, be 
careful lest in judging you will be judged. 

“Every man and woman has got to have clean hands and a pure 
heart to execute judgment, else they had better let the matter alone. 

“Again, suppose the parties are not caught in their iniquity, and 
it passes along unnoticed, shall I have compassion on them? Yes, 
I will have compassion on them, for transgressions of the nature 
already named, or for those of any other description. If the Lord 
so order it that they are not caught in the act of their iniquity, it 
is pretty good proof that He is willing for them to live; and I say 
let them live and suffer in the flesh for their sins, for they will 
have it to do. 

“There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made 
with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood 
of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for 
it, and the judgments of the Almighty will come, sooner or later, 
and every man and woman will have to atone for breaking their 
covenants. To what degree? Will they have to go to hell? They 


298 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


are in hell enough now. I do not wish them in a greater hell, when 
their consciences condemn them all the time. Let compassion reign 
in our bosoms. Try to comprehend how weak we are, how we are 
organized, how the spirit and the flesh are continually at war.” * 


The Mormons never tired of crying out against the hypocrisy 
of the Gentiles, who could tolerate prostitution and persecute 
polygamy. Orson Pratt wrote that they “strain at a gnat and 
swallow a camel,” but the position was exactly the reverse. The 
Gentiles of the East could not possibly swallow such a large camel 
as polygamy, but promiscuous prostitutes, be they ever so 
numerous, were merely gnats to the righteous. They only came 
out at night, while polygamy stared people in the face brazenly. 
When Christian gentlemen traded with prostitutes, they did so in 
the knowledge that they had sinned, and afterwards rushed to their 
Father and asked Him to forgive them, for they knew not what 
they did, but the Mormons, in the minds of the Christian gentle- 
men, committed the unforgivable sin: they lived with more women 
than one and did not seem to realize that they were doing wrong, 
but, on the contrary, insisted that their way was the only 
righteous way. This was far from a gnat to the churchgoers of 
the eastern United States. The Mormons, on the other hand, 
maintained that the Gentile world practised in an ugly, immoral 
form what the Mormons preached as a beautiful, divine doctrine; 
they argued that the Bible forbids prostitution, but permits polyg- 
amy, while the modern world forbade polygamy, but tolerated 
prostitution. It was inconceivable to them that this could be just: 
or righteous, for the Bible was the book of their law and the 
inspiration of their morality. 

Two weeks before he publicly announced the principle of plural 
marriage Brigham Young expressed his opinion of the incon- 
sistency of the Christian morality: 


“Admit, for argument’s sake, that the ‘Mormon’ Elders have 
more wives than one, yet our enemies never have proved it. If I 
had forty wives in the United States, they did not know it, and 
could not substantiate it, neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or 
magistrate for them. I live above the law, and so do this people. 
Do the laws of the United States require us to crouch and bow down 
to the miserable wretches who violate them? No. The broad law 
of the whole earth is that every person has the right to enjoy every 


15 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 247. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY LOO 


mortal blessing, so far as he does not infringe upon the rights and 
privileges of others. It is also according to the acts of every legis- 
lative body throughout the Union, to enjoy all that you are capable 
of enjoying; but you are forbidden to infringe upon the rights, 
property, wife, or anything in the possession of your neighbor. I 
defy all the world to prove that we have infringed upon that law. 
You may circumscribe the whole earth, and pass through every 
Christian nation, so called, and what do you find? If you tell 
them a ‘Mormon’ has two wives, they are shocked, and call it dread- 
ful blasphemy ; if you whisper such a thing into the ears of a Gentile 
who takes a fresh woman every night, he is thunderstruck with the 
enormity of the crime. The vile practice of violating female virtue 
with impunity is customary among the professed Christian nations 
of the world; this is therefore no marvel to them, but they are 
struck with amazement when they are told a man may have more 
lawful wives than one! What do you think of a woman having 
more husbands than one? This is not known to the law, yet it is 
done in the night, and considered by the majority of mankind to 
be all right. There are certain governments in the world, that give 
women license to open their doors and windows to carry on this 
abominable practice, under the cover of night. Five years ago the 
census of New York gave 15,000 prostitutes in that city. Is that 
law? Is that good order? Look at your Constitution, look at the 
Federal law, look at every wholesome principle, and they tell you 
that death is at your doors, corruption in your streets, and hell is 
all open, and gaping wide to inclose you in its fiery vortex. To 
talk about law and good order while such things exist, makes me 
righteously angry. Talk not to me about law.” *° 


According to Brigham Young, the sex contract between men and 
women outside the Mormon community was as short in duration 
as that entered into between a patron and a livery stable pro- 
prietor: “They are hired the same as you would hire a horse and 
chaise at a livery stable; you go out a few days for a ride, return 
again, put up your horse, pay down your money, and you are 
freed from all further responsibility. eau 


_. Visitors to Salt Lake City had to admit in their accounts of 
life among the Mormons that they met with no prostitutes and | 


\ with very few women on the streets after dark. The town which 

“they had expected to be startlingly immoral and enticingly free, 
they found to be a cold, orderly, regulated city, with all the social 
life concentrated in the institution of the family and the organiza- 


16 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 361. 
“17 Journal of Discourses, vol. 12, p. 270. 


300 - BRIGHAM YOUNG 


tion of the Church. After visiting Salt Lake City, Justin Mc- 
Carthy wrote: “So I can well imagine one of these superseded and 
lonely wives in Salt Lake City, crying aloud in the bitterness_of. 
her heart, ‘Give us polygamy as in Turkey.’” No two institu- \ 
tions could possibly be more dissimilar in their practical operation — 
than Mormon plurality and Moslem polygamy. The urge of the 
_ Mormons’ polygamy was based fundamentally upon the ordinary 
\sex instinct. A man looked upon a woman and saw that she was 
good; he took her to wife, and she bore him children. The Mor- 
mons’ consciences, however, never allowed them to admit to them- 
selves the sensual origin of this propulsion. In order to assuage 
those consciences, which were of Puritan stock, they made a divine 
principle of their desires. They even took unto themselves as a 
matter of duty many wives they could not have desired. Brigham 
Young married some of the wives of Joseph Smith as part of his 
duty. It was also comforting for the Mormons to take a few, 
Yelderly, homely wives, for their presence in the household was a 
constant reminder that, after all, polygamy was practised in obedi- 
-ence and for the sole purpose of salvation, and not by any chance 
‘for sensual gratification. The polygamous husbands showed little 
sentiment for their wives, and any favoritism was usually clan- 
destine; to make love freely and frankly on a large scale would 
have been to the Mormons too much in the nature of an eastern 
seraglio, and most of them had been raised in New England farm- 
houses or Anglo-Saxon hovels—the very thought of a harem 
was enough to engender the fear of hell. 

It is the natural tendency of a man to admire the freedom 
implied by the principle of polygamy, but, as the Mormons formu- 
lated and carried out that principle, it was more oppressive and 
destructive of liberty than monogamy, even to the male. Mormon 
men were expected to take wives, and unless a Mormon did so 
with celerity and with regularity, his standing in the community 
was lowered, and he was looked upon not only with disdain, but 
also with distrust. And it is just as conceivable that a man might 
not want more than two or three wives, as it is that he might 
become tired of one. Unfortunately, many Mormons had wives 
foisted upon them for the sake of their religion rather than for 
the exercise of their pleasure; and then they had to suffer the 
maddening accusation of their Gentile visitors that they were 
lascivious beasts. As a matter of fact, when the Mormons prac- 
tised polygamy, they merely carried conventional morality to an 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 301 


extreme. While polygamy had its origin in the sensuality of 
Joseph Smith, its natural development was along the lines of the , 
most conventional morality, somewhat multiplied. Back of this” 
morality was the natural, sexual desire, and during the nineteenth 
century in the United States the Mormons were not the only 
people to clothe their natural impulses in the robes of divine sanc- 
tion. Cults and sects arose, thoroughly religious in their nature, 
whose fundamental purposes were to give one man many wives, 
or one woman many husbands; sometimes complete promiscuity 
among the members of a select community was the tenet of the 
faith, and occasionally, as in the case of the Shakers, the IS 
was celibacy. ‘ 
' Brigham Young insisted in his sermons that polygamy was_ 
neyer synonymous with lust. God, he said, commanded, and man 
had nothing to do but obey. “I would rather take my valise in 
my hand to-day,” he told his congregation, “and never see a wife 
or a child again, and preach the Gospel until I go into the grave, 
than to live as I do, unless God commands it. I never entered 
into the order of plurality of wives to gratify passion. And were 
I now asked whether I desired and wanted another wife, my 
reply would be, It should be one by whom the Spirit will bring 
forth noble children. I am almost sixty years old; and if I now 
live for passion, I pray the Lord Almighty to take my life from 
the earth.” The irreverent might be led to believe that perhaps — 
it was because he was sixty years old that he was no longer gov- 
erned by passion, but further along in this sermon he made clear 
that for sixty years his life had been pure: ‘Ask these sisters 
(many of them have known me for years) what my life has been 
in private and in public. It has been like the angel Gabriel’s, if 
he had visited you; and I can live so still. But how are we to be 
made happy? There is one course—love the Giver more than the 
gift; love Him that has placed passion in me more than my 
passions.” *® 

It seemed to be necessary to emphasize often that the Giver of 
wives and husbands was to be regarded more than the gift. Heber 
Kimball said in a sermon: “Some men think if they can get a 
woman that has a handsome face, that is all there is of it. But 
it is that woman that has a head and sensibility—lI do not care if 
her head is three feet long,—it has nothing to do with the char- 
acter that lives in the body.” And Brigham Young once ad- 


18 Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, pp. 36-37. 


302 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


dressed the sisters directly on the relative positions of duty and 
love, for some of them who were married to elderly Mormons 
forgot that relativity in their unhappiness: 


“T am now almost daily sealing young girls to men of age and 
experience. Love your duties, sisters. Are you sealed to a good 
man? Yes, to a man of God... . Sisters, do-you wish to make 
yourselves happy? Then what is your duty? It is for you to bear 
children, in the name of the Lord, that are full of faith and the 
power of God,—to receive, conceive, bear, and bring forth in the 
name of Israel’s God, that you may have the honor of being the 
mothers of great and good men—of kings, princes, and potentates 
that shall yet live on the earth and govern and control the nations. 
Do you look forward to that? or are you tormenting yourselves by 
thinking that your husbands do not love you? I would not care 
whether they loved a particle or not; but I would cry out, like one 
of old, in the joy of my heart, ‘I have got a man from the Lord!’ 
“Hallelujah! I ama mother—I have borne an image of God!” ?® 


Woman, according to Brigham Young, was a receptacle, and 
the main purpose of polygamy was the increased breeding facili- 
ties which it afforded. Therefore, anything in the nature of birth 
“control was extremely repugnant to him and to his followers. 
Heber Kimball once delivered a picturesque and forceful sermon 
on that subject: 


“Suffice it to say I have a good many wives and lots of young - 
mustards that are growing, and they are a kind of fruitful seed. 
... It is so with ‘Mormonism’; it will flourish and increase, and 
it will multiply in young ‘Mormons.’ “To be plain about it, Mr. 
Kimball, what did you get these wives for?’ The Lord told me to 
get them. ‘What for?’ To raise up young ‘Mormons,’—not to 
have women to commit whoredoms with, to gratify the lusts of the 
flesh, but to raise up children. 

“The priests of the day in the whole world keep women, just the 
same as the gentlemen of the Legislatures do. The great men of the 
earth keep from two to three, and perhaps half-a-dozen private 
women. They are not acknowledged openly, but are kept merely 
to gratify their lusts; and if they get in the family way, they call 
for the doctors, and also upon females who practise under the garb 
of midwives, to kill the children, and thus they are depopulating 
their own species. (Voice: ‘And their names shall come to an 
end.’) Yes, because they shed innocent blood. 


19 Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p. 37. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 303 


“T knew that before I received ‘Mormonism.’ I have known of 
lots of women calling for a doctor to destroy their children; and 
there are many of the women in this enlightened age and in the 
most popular towns and cities in the Union that take a course to get 
rid of their children. The whole nation is guilty of it. I am 
telling the truth. I won’t call it infanticide. You know I am famous 
for calling things by their names. 

“T have been taught it, and my wife was taught it in our young 
days, when she got into the family way, to send for a doctor and 
get rid of the child, so as to live with me to gratify lust. It is God’s 
truth, and the curse of God will come upon that man, and upon 
that woman, and upon those cursed doctors. There is scarcely one 
of them that is free from sin. It is just as common as it is for 
wheat to grow. 

“Do we take that course here? No... and I have had alto- 
gether about fifty children; and one hundred years won’t pass away 
before my posterity will out-number the present inhabitants of the 
State of New York, because I do not destroy my offspring. I am 
doing the works of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and if I live and be 
a good man, and my wives are as good as they should be, I will 
raise up men yet, that will come through my loins, that will be as 
great men as ever came to this earth; and so will you. 

“T will tell you that some of the most noble spirits are waiting 
with the Father to this day to come forth through the right channel 
and the right kind of men and women. That is what has to be yet; 
for there are thousands and millions of spirits waiting to obtain 
bodies upon this earth.” ?° 


One of the rules of Mormon polygamy enjoined continence for 
the wife during the period of gestation. The Mormons found in 
the advisability of continence during this period an indication of 
the divine economy of the system of plural marriage. Romania 
B. Penrose in a lecture on hygiene before the Female Relief So- 
ciety of Salt Lake City said: “There is nothing in the economy or 
requirements of man’s life.which requires this abstinence beyond 
the temperate limit of his powers of vitality; and this to me is 
a proof unanswerable and prima facie on the spheres of manhood 
and womanhood, of the divinity,—and I believe it is a necessity 
for the salvation of the human race,—of the truth and divinity 
of plural marriage.” 

Occasionally Brigham Young forgot that wives were merely 
divine instruments for the population of the earth with the 


20 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 89-90. 


304 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


righteous, and he offered them as rewards and sources of pleas- 
ure, comfort, and rejuvenation. For example, he gave Bishop 
John D. Lee a seventeenth wife in 1858. “I was sealed to her,” 
wrote Lee, “while a member of the Territorial Legislature. 
Brigham Young said that Isaac C. Haight, who was also in the 
Legislature, and I, needed some young women to renew our vital- 
ity, so he gave us both a dashing young bride.” This was an 
interesting, if unusual, method of obtaining vital legislation. 
Heber Kimball gave the congregation one Sunday morning the 
benefit of his observations of the rejuvenating effect of plural 
wives: 


“T would not be afraid to promise a man who is sixty years of 
age, if he will take the counsel of Brother Brigham and his brethren, 
that he will renew his age. I have noticed that a man who has but) 
‘one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and 
dry up, while a man who goes into plurality looks fresh, young, and 
sprightly. Why is this? Because God loves that man, and because 
vhe honors His work and word. Some of you may not believe this; 
but I not only believe it—I also know it. For a man of God to be 
confined to one woman is small business; for it is as much as we can 
do now to keep up under the burdens we have to carry; and I do- 
not know what we should do if we had only one wife a piece.” 7+ 


Brigham Young enjoyed great power as the arbiter who yee, 
or refused to seal women to men. He once warned the elders i 
a°sermon to guard the privilege of polygamy carefully, lest it be 
taken from them: 


“The Elders of Israel frequently call upon me—Brother Brigham, 
a word in private, if you please.’ Bless me, this is no secret to me, 
I know what you want, it is to get a wife! ‘Yes, brother Brigham, 
if you are willing.’ 

“T tell you here, now, in the presence of the Almighty God, it is 
not the privilege of any Elder to have even ONE wife, before he 
has honored his Priesthood, before he has magnified his calling. If 
you obtain one, it is by mere permission, to see what you will do, 
' how you will act, whether you will conduct yourself in righteousness 
in that holy estate. TAKE CARE! Elders of Israel, be cautious! 
or you will lose your wives and your children. If you abuse your 
wives, turn them out of doors, and treat them in a harsh and cruel 
manner, you will be left wifeless and childless; you will have no 


21 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 22. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 305 


increase in eternity. You will have bartered this blessing, this privi- 
lege away; you will have sold your birthright, as Esau did his bless- 
ing, and it can never come to you again, never, NO NEVER! 

“Look to it, ye Elders! You will awake from your dream, alas! 
but too soon, and then you will realize the truth of the remarks I 
am making to-day. Whose privilege is it to have women sealed 
to him? It is his who has stood the test, whose integrity is un- 
swerving, who loves righteousness because it is right, and the truth 
because there is no error therein, and virtue because it is a principle 
that dwells in the bosom of Him who sits enthroned in the highest 
heavens; for it is a principle which existed with God in all eterni- 
ties, and is a co-operator, a co*worker betwixt man and his Maker, 
to exalt man, and bring him into his presence, and make him like 
unto Himself! It is such a man’s privilege to have wives and chil- 
dren, and neighbors, and friends, who wish to be sealed to him. 
Who else? No one. I tell you nobody else. DO YOU HEAR 
Pe Ass 


we 


Brigham Young was anxious to preserve his position as dis- 
’ penser of wives. He and Heber Kimball frequently warned the 
“missionaries who went forth every year to convert the Gentiles 
and returned from England with flocks of women, that woman 
was the most powerful temptation in the way of man. In a letter 
to his son William, who was a missionary in England, Heber 
Kimball wrote: “William, as to yourself, with all your brethren, 
we have no fears but that you will do right, and remember the 
parable of the sheep and good shepherd, and suffer not yourselves 
to be tempted to take any of the sheep until you come home, and 
get the consent of the good shepherd. We are aware that the 
English girls’ cheeks look very red and rosy: where any of the 
Elders have stung them, it has been death to the stinger—that’s 
all.” ** Ina sermon Heber Kimball developed this metaphor of 
Mormon women and sheep, and he warned the shepherds again: 
“T have said that you have no business to make a selection of any 
of these sheep, or to make a choice of them, or make any 
covenant with them, until they are brought home and placed in 
the fold, and then if you want a sheep or two, ask the shepherd 
for them, and if you choose a sheep without taking this course 
you will get your fingers burnt. Why? Because they are his 
sheep—mark it. . . . | would rather have my head laid upon a 


22 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 119. 
23 Millennial Star, vol. 17, p. 521. 


306 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


block, and severed from my shoulders than ever make a proposal 
to any woman living upon the earth and marry her, unless I had 
permission from the chief shepherd. That tells it.” ** 

It is said that the missionaries did not always obey this 
injunction. One anti-Mormon writer and lecturer described his 
view of the Mormon missionary activities in these words: 
“These Libertines and habitual Lechers, are thrown upon the 
British public for three years, and we are expected to believe 
that during that time they live a life of Celibacy. You can believe 
it if you like; I don’t; nor shall I, until fish live without water. 
Mormon fish are not long out of water in England, if at all: 
there is so much water around our little Island.” This same 
author also accused the Mormon missionaries of not waiting for 
the marriage privileges until after the rites were celebrated in Salt 
Lake City. ‘To describe that journey,” he wrote, “is impossible 
here; but, in passing, I must say, the Missionaries, who had been 
three years in England, seemed to have special regard for the 
Female Lambs of the flocks, and were I to tell what I saw during 
that six weeks’ journey over the plains, camping out as we had 
to, night after night, and sleeping in waggons, under waggons, 
under trees, bushes, or any shelter we could find: I say, were I 
to tell all I then saw and heard this book could not be sent by 
mail, while I myself would be sent to jail. If I protested in any 
way I was kindly informed that I had better mind my own 
business, or I should be put where the dogs could not bite me.” *° 


III 


The effects of polygamy on the Mormon women are difficult to 
discover in detail, for the Mormon women kept both their home 
life and their mental struggles to themselves, and especially did 
they hide from prying Gentile eyes whatever troubles they may 
have had. The information which is available from Gentile 
sources is largely lurid in its implications, but dull and insignificant 
in its fact; it was impossible for a Gentile to live in the intimacy 
of a Mormon household, and he or she was therefore compelled 
to gather information at the back-stairs, under dramatic, but inac- 
curate, circumstances. The vehement anti-polygamy ladies and 
clergymen spoke and wrote against the institution not with 


24 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 207. 
25 Uncle Sam’s Abscess, by W. Jarman, p. 39; pp. 45-46. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 307 


reason, but with sentiment, as their weapon,'and their works offer 
moral indignation instead of argument. They used such phrases 
as “degrading the womanhood of the nation,” and “lowering the 
light of the world,” but they rarely became specific. They had 
printed many pitiful tales with plots so similar that one is 
inclined to suspect their authenticity. In each case an innocent 
and trusting young English girl falls unwarily into the arms of 
a leering Mormon elder, who, before she recovers from her bliss, 
transports her several thousand miles across the ocean and the 
plains to Utah, where she discovers to her undying chagrin that 
he has half-a-dozen other wives. The girl, who is usually seven- 
teen years old and frequently an orphan, spends the rest of her 
life languishing, and finally dies of a broken heart. 

It seemed impossible for the contemporaries of Brigham Young 

to realize that the institution of polygamy, like that of marriage, 
worked differently with different temperaments, that for some 
women it was entirely satisfactory, and others resented its 
practical details. Naturally, there were family quarrels. Brig- 
ham Young’s son, Brigham Young, Jr., wrote in his diary: “Had 
a family dinner at our house some little feeling was developed and 
Della went home with her children which caused us all to feel 
unpleasant, but an excellent dinner to which Della contributed a 
share, made us all very well content.” ’° There were many 
women in Utah who accepted polygamy as a comforting principle, 
and were happy in its practice, and there were others who never 
became accustomed to the association of fellow wives, and, forced 
by their pride or their lack of courage to endure that association, 
lived unhappily ever afterwards. An example of the first class is 
found in the case of one of Brigham Young’s wives, who fell in 
love with him and is said to have worked seven years in his house- 
hold as a servant for the privilege of being married to him. She 
had a son and was happy. It did not worry her placid disposition 
that she enjoyed only one-twentieth, approximately, of her hus- 
band’s time and attention. Her mind was occupied with that 
twentieth, and with the multiplicity of duties and opportunities 
afforded by Brigham Young’s immense family household. For 
sensitive souls polygamy must have proved as unhappy as mar- 
riage to one man or woman frequently proves to be, but the ma- 
jority of Mormon women were apparently satisfied with it, for 


26 Manuscript Diary of Brigham Young, Jr., p. 235. In the Manuscript 
Collection of the New York Public Library. 


308 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


their sensibilities were not developed by their education and en- 
vironment beyond their powers of satisfaction. To their well- 
meaning sisters who wished to emancipate them from a bondage 
which they did not feel, or at least did not acknowledge, the 
Mormon women answered that if a father can love six children, 
he can also love six wives. 

There was, however, much real pathos as a result of polygamy, 
which it is impossible to present because of the lack of informa- 
tion from the women who suffered it. That there was con- 
siderable jealousy we know from the sermons of Brigham Young. 
Upon one occasion he remarked that the greatest curse God had 
placed upon women was when he told Eve, “Thy desire shall be 
to thy husband.” “Continually wanting the husband,” complained 
Brigham Young. “ ‘If you go to work, my eyes follow you; if 
you go away in the carriage, my eyes follow you, and I like you 
and I love you, I delight in you, and I desire you should have 
nobody else.’ I do not know that the Lord could have put upon 
women anything worse than this; I do not blame them for hav- 
ing these feelings. I would be glad if it were otherwise.” ** He 
argued that the duty of a wife was to submit, for it was written 
in the Bible, “and he shall rule over you,” but he was compelled to 
admit that the women frequently refused to accept their situation 
with complacency. In his own family he experienced what the 
whole community was experiencing, for he once said in a sermon: 
“A few years ago one of my wives, when talking about wives 
leaving their husbands, said, ‘I wish my husband’s wives would 
leave him, every soul of them except myself.’ That is the way 
they all feel, more or less, at times, both old and young. The ladies 
of seventy, seventy-five, eighty, and eighty-five years of age are 
greeted here with the same cheerfulness as are the rest. All are 
greeted with kindness, respect, and gentleness, no matter whether 
they wear linsey or silks or satin, they are all alike respected and 
beloved according to their behavior; at least they are’so far as 
I am concerned. . . . I love my wives, respect them, and honor 
them, but to make a queen of one and peasants of the rest I have 
no such disposition, neither do I expect to do it.” ** This sermon 
was delivered, however, before Brigham Young met Amelia Fol- 
som, who, as we shall see, occupied the position of a queen in his 
domestic kingdom. 


27 Journal of Discourses, vol. 16, p. 167. 
28 Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, pp. 195-196. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 309 


In the opinion of Brigham Young women were created to 
submit to the will of their husbands, and the woman who bore her 
wrongs patiently would triumph in the other world. The re- 
sponsibility for those wrongs would rest eventually with the hus- 
band, but it sometimes must have seemed as if heaven were a 
long way off. Brigham Young admired women personally and in 
the abstract, but in his mind they were primarily a spiritual chattel, 
whose duty it was to be taken care of by husbands whose duty it 
was to take care of them. In testifying to his respect for women, 
he once remarked that the greatest resource of Utah was its 
women, to which George D. Prentice, the humorist, added, “It is 
very evident that the prophet is disposed to husband his 
resources.” 

~ However much he admired them, Brigham Young felt that it 

was impossible for the comfort of his position to allow women 
_ to dictate to him, and he therefore felt that they were never meant 
‘by God to enjoy that privilege. “Where is the man,” he said in 
the pulpit, ‘‘who has wives, and all of them think he is doing just 
right to them? Ido not know such a man; I know it is not your 
humble servant. If I would only be dictated by women I should 
make a hell of it; but I cannot be, I can humor them and treat 
them kindly, but I tell them I shall do just what I know to be 
right, and they may help themselves the best they can. I do not 
say that in so many words, but that is what I mean, and I let 
them act it out.” *° Occasionally Brigham Young became impa- 
tient with the discontent of his own wives and those of the other 
members of the community, On Sunday, September 21, 1856, he 
delivered a sermon addressed particularly to whining wives in 
which he offered them their freedom: 


“Now for my proposition; it is more particularly for my sisters, 
as it is frequently happening that women say they are unhappy. 
Men will say, ‘My wife, though a most excellent woman, has not 
seen a happy day since I took my second wife’; ‘No, not a happy 
day for a year,’ says one; and another has not seen a happy day for 
five years. It is said that women are tied down and abused: that 
they are misused and have not the liberty they ought to have; that 
many of them are wading through a perfect flood of tears, because 
of the conduct of some men, together with their own folly. 

“T wish my own women to understand that what I am going to 
say is for them as well as others, and I want those who are here to 


29 Journal of Discourses, vol. 17, p. 160. 


310 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


tell their sisters, yes, all the women of this community, and then 
write it back to the States, and do as you please with it. I am going 
to give you from this time to the 6th day of October next, for re- 
flection, that you may determine whether you wish to stay with your 
husbands or not, and then I am going to set every woman at liberty 
and say to them, Now go your way, my women with the rest, go 
your way. And my wives have got to do one of two things; either 
round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world, and 
live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them about 
me. I will go into heaven alone, rather than have scratching and 
fighting around me. I will set all at liberty. “What, first wife too?’ 
Yes, I will liberate all. 

“T know what my women will say; they will say, ‘You can have 
as many women as you please, Brigham.’ But I want to go some- 
where and do something to get rid of the whiners; I do not want 
them to receive a part of the truth and spurn the rest out of doors. 

“T wish my women, and brother Kimball’s and brother Grant’s to 
leave and every woman in this Territory, or else say in their hearts 
that they will embrace the Gospel—the whole of it. Tell the Gen- 
tiles that I will free every woman in this Territory at our next Con- 
ference. ‘What, the first wife too?’ Yes, there shall not be one 
held in bondage, all shall be set free. And then let the father be 
the head of the family, the master of his own household; and let him 
treat them as an angel would treat them; and let the wives and the 
children say amen to what he says, and be subject to his dictates, 
instead of their dictating to the man, instead of their trying to 
govern him. 

“No doubt some are thinking, ‘I wish brother Brigham would say 
what would become of the children.’ I will tell you what my feel- 
ings are; I will let my wives take the children, and I have property 
enough to support them, and can educate them, and then give them 
a good fortune, and I can take a fresh start. 

“T do not desire to keep a particle of my property, except enough 
to protect me from a state of nudity. And I would say, wives you 
are welcome to the children, only do not teach them iniquity; for 
if you do, I will send an Elder, or come myself, to teach them the 
Gospel. You teach them life and salvation, or I will send Elders 
to instruct them. 

“Let every man thus treat his wives, keeping raiment enough to 
clothe his body; and say to your wives, “Take all that I have and 
be set at liberty; but if you stay with me you shall comply with the 
law of God, and that too without any murmuring and whining. You 
must fulfil the law of God in every respect, and round up your 
shoulders to walk up to the mark without any grunting.’ 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 311 


“Now recollect that two weeks from to-morrow I am going to set 
you at liberty. But the first wife will say, ‘It is hard, for I have 
lived with my husband twenty years, or thirty, and have raised a 
family of children for him, and it is a great trial to me for him to 
have more women’; then I say it is time that you gave him up to 
other women who will bear children. If my wife had borne me all 
the children that she ever would bear, the celestial law would teach 
me to take young women that would have children... . 

“Sisters, I am not joking, | do not throw out my proposition to 
banter your feelings, to see whether you will leave your husbands, 
all or any of you. But I do know that there is no cessation to the 
everlasting whining of many of the women in this Territory; I am 
satisfied that this is the case. And if the women will turn from the 
commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, 
I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to their 
heels, and all the day long. And those that enter into it and are 
faithful, I will promise them that they shall be queens in heaven, 
and rulers to all eternity. 

““But,’ says one, ‘I want to have my paradise now.’ And says 
another, ‘I did think that I should be in paradise if I was sealed to 
brother Brigham, and I thought I should be happy when I became 
his wife, or brother Heber’s. I loved you so much, that I thought 
I was going to have a heaven right off, right here on the spot.’ 

“What a curious doctrine it is, that we are preparing to enjoy! 
The only heaven for you is that which you make yourselves. My 
heaven is here—(laying his hand upon his heart). I carry it with 
me. When did I expect it in its perfection? When I come up in 
the resurrection; then I shall have it, and not till then. 

“But now we have got to fight the good fight of faith, sword in 
hand, as much so as men have when they go to battle; and it is one 
continual warfare from morning to evening, with sword in hand. 
This is my duty, and this is my life... . 

“But how is it now? Your desire is to your husband, but you 
strive to rule over him, whereas the man should rule over you. 

“‘Some may ask whether that is the case with me; go to my house 
and live, and then you will learn that I am very kind, but know 
how to rule. 

“Tf I had only wise men to talk to, there would be no necessity 
for my saying what I am going to say. Many and many an Elder 
knows no better than to go home and abuse as good a woman as 
dwells upon this earth, because of what I have said this afternoon. 
Are you who act in that way, fit to have a family? No, you are 
not, and never will be, until you get good common sense... . If 
I were talking to a people that understood themselves and the doc- 


312 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


trine of the holy Gospel, there would be no necessity for saying this, 
because you would understand. But many here have been (what 
shall I say? Pardon me,. brethren,) hen-pecked so much, that they 
do not know the place of either man or woman; they abuse and rule 
a good woman with an iron hand. With them it is as Solomon 
said—‘Bray a fool in a mortar among wheat, with a pestle, yet will 
not his foolishness depart from him.’ You may talk to them about 
their duties, about what is required of them, and still they are fools, 
and will continue to be. 

“Prepare yourselves for two weeks from to-morrow; and I will 
tell you now, that if you will tarry with your husbands, after I have 
set you free, you must bow down to it, and submit yourselves to 
the celestial law. You may go where you please, after two weeks 
from to-morrow; but, remember, that I will not hear any more of 
this whining.” °° 


The wives decided to submit to their lot, for there was no» 


exodus of Mormon women two weeks later. However, they did 


not cease their whining altogether, for there are other sermons | 


% 
; 


indicating that the women were frequently discontented and con-/ 


tinued to express themselves accordingly. Heber Kimball ad- 
mitted that he had a few wives whom he could not control: “I 
would as soon try to control a rebellious mule,” he said, “as to 
control them. . . . But when a woman begins to dispute me, 
about nine times out of ten I get up and say, ‘Go it,’ and then go 
off about my business; and if ever I am so foolish as to quarrel 


with a woman, I ought to be whipped; for you may always. 


calculate that they will have the last word.”’ ** 
When the authority of Brigham Young and the wish of a 
wife conflicted, Heber Kimball was certain of his path, and he told 


the congregation what he would do if a choice were necessary: | 


“What !—sustain a woman, a wife, in preference to sustaining the 
Prophet Joseph, brother Brigham, and his brethren! Your re- 
ligion is vain when you take that course. Well, my wife may say, 
‘If you will sustain Brigham in preference to me, I will leave 
you.’ I should reply, ‘Leave and be damned!’ And that very 
quickly. That is a part of my religion—‘Leave quickly, you poor 
snoop.’ . .. I should lead her; and she should be led by me, if 
I am a good man; and if I am not a good man, I have no just 
right in this Church to a wife or wives, or to the power to propa- 
gate my species. What, then, should be done with me? Makea 


80 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 55-57. 
81 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 276. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 313 


eunuch of me, and stop my propagation.” *? “When Orson Hyde 
said in a sermon that no man could be saved who allowed a woman 
to rule over him, an anxious English emigrant spoke up in the 
audience and asked, ‘“‘What, then, will become of Prince Albert 
and Queen Victoria?” Hyde answered, “General and eternal 
principles are too stubborn to yield to individual accommodation. 
They must see to their own affairs.” 

Brigham Young did not believe that woman’s place was ex- 
clusively in the home. He urged those who did not have families 
to occupy all their time, to learn printing or to act as clerks in 
stores. Selling tape, he told his congregation, was not a man’s 
job, and he asked the women to study bookkeeping and arithmetic 
so that they could take the places of men in stores. After the 
telegraph came to Utah, he suggested that the women act as teleg- 
raphers instead of men, who would then be free to dig and to 
cut down trees in the cafions. “See a great big six-footer work- 
ing the telegraph,” he said. “One of them will eat as much as 
three or four women, and they stuff themselves until they are 
almost too lazy to touch the wire. There they sit. What work 
is there about that that a woman cannot do? She can write as 
well as a man, and spell as well as a man, and better, and I leave 
it to every man and woman of learning if the girls are not 
quicker and more apt at learning in school than the boys.” Brig- 
ham Young also believed it was the duty of wives to help on 
farms and to do all their own housework; he frequently instructed 
them in his sermons in this branch of their work, the main prin- 
ciple of his system of domestic science being that everything has 
its place and should be in it. He alone had no place, but felt that 
his influence extended even to the care and feeding of children, 
and the fashions of his wives and those of his brethren. 

The subject of woman’s dress was one which Brigham Young 
never tired of discussing with his people, in his effort to make 
them economize. He was particularly in favor of homespun 
garments of a modest, uniform cut, and he vehemently opposed 
following Gentiles in their styles of dress. The Mormon Ex- 
positor, a small newspaper edited by anti-Mormons in Salt Lake 
City, printed a sermon by Brigham Young on this subject, which 
was delivered on the first Sunday in September, 1861, but which 
it was thought advisable not to reprint in the church Journal of 
Discourses: 


32 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 28-29. 


314. BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“Give us a little Gentileism,” said Brigham Young, “for Heaven’s 
sake, you say. The women say, let us wear hoops, because the 
whores wear them. 

“T believe if they were to come with a cob stuck in their behind, 
you would want to do the same. I despise their damnable fashions, 
their lying and whoring; and God being my helper, I'll live to see 
every one of those cussed fools off the earth, saint or sinner. 1 
don’t know that I have a wife but what would see me damned 
rather than that she should not get what she wanted, and that is 
what I think of all of them, and the men too. 

“T would see a Gentile further in Hell than they ever got before 
I would follow their fashions, if it did not suit me. There is not 
a day I go out but I see the women’s legs, and if the wind blows 
you see them up to their bodies. 

“Tf you must wear their hoops, tie them down with weights, and 
don’t let your petticoats be over your heads. It is ridiculous and 
should not be. It belongs to a set of whory congregations that love 
iniquity and to corrupt themselves one with another. It belongs 
there. It don’t belong to this community. 

“How do you think I feel about it? Who cares about these 
infernal Gentiles? If they were to wear a s—t pot on their head, 
must I do so? I know I ought to be ashamed, but when you show 
your tother end I have a right to talk about tother end. If you 
keep them hid, J’Il be modest, and not talk about them. 

“There are those fornication pantaloons, made on purpose for 
whores to button up in front. My pantaloons button up here (show- 
ing how) where they belong, that my secrets, that God has given 
me, should not be exposed. 

“You follow the Gentiles and you will be partakers of their 
plagues if you don’t look out. That is the work of the Lord. 

“Break off from your sins by righteousness. Will you do it? 
This is the word of the Almighty to you, through his servant Brig- 
ham. Keep your secrets secret, and hide your bodies and preserve 
your bodies. 

“Now, if a whore comes along and turns up her clothes, don’t 
turn up yours and go through the streets.” *° 


Brigham Young was frequently so outspoken in his sermons 
that it was considered wiser not to print some of them exactly as 
he delivered them, and he sometimes edited them himself before 

_ they were published for the edification of the Saints abroad. He 
“once said in a sermon: “Brother Heber says that the music is 
taken out of his sermons when brother Carrington clips out 


83 Mormon Expositor, vol. 1, no. 1, Salf Lake City, 1875. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 315 


words here and there; and I have taken out the music from mine, 
for I know the traditions and false notions of the people. Our 
sermons are read by tens of thousands outside of Utah. Members 
of the British Parliament have those Journals of Discourses, pub- 
lished by brother Watt; they have them locked up, they secrete 
them, and go to their rooms to study them, and they know. all 
about us. They may, perhaps, keep them from the Queen, for 
fear that she would believe and be converted. . . . In printing 
my remarks, I often omit the sharp words, though they are per- 
fectly understood and applicable here; for I do not wish to spoil 
the good I desire to do. Let my remarks go to the world in a 
way the prejudices of the people can bear, that they may read 
them, and ponder them, and ask God whether they are true.” 
Unfortunately, therefore, we must supply with our imaginations 
some of the poignancy with which he spiced his sermons, and 
which was removed when they were canned for general con- 
sumption. Frequently, however, he did not take the music out of 
his discourses, and he once excused himself for his language in 
the pulpit, “where,” he remarked, “I do all my swearing.” He 
also said that he had a wheelbarrow full of letters from friends 
who urged him to be more cautious in his expressions of opinion 
and in the language he used to express them; he told of his 
feelings when he received such letters: ‘Do you know how I feel 
when I get such communications? I will tell you, I feel just like 
rubbing their noses with them. If I am not to have the privilege 
of speaking of Saint and sinner when I please, tie up my mouth 
and let me go to the grave, for my work would be done. .. . I 
feel as independent as an angel. . . . It is for me to pursue a 
course that will build up the kingdom of God on the earth, and 
you may take my character to be what you please, I care not 
what you do with it, so you but keep your hands off from me.” *° 

When he was discussing women’s fashions, Brigham Young 
did not spare his own family. “I asked some of my wives the 
other evening,” he said, “‘ ‘What is the use of all this velvet ribbon 
—perhaps ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty yards, on a linsey dress?’ 
Said I, ‘What is the use of it? Does it do any good?’ I was 
asked, very spiritedly and promptly, in return, ‘What good do 
those buttons do on the back of your coat?’ Said I, ‘How many 
have I got?’ and turning round | showed that there were none 


34 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 99-100. 
35 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, pp. 48-49. 


316 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


there.” He then went on to say that he had offered frequently to 
give his wives bills of divorcement if they could not stop yielding 
to the foolish demands of fashion.*®° ‘The Grecian Bend, with 
its yards of waste material, offended Brigham Young’s sense of 
economy, and he remarked that if the size continued to increase 
at the current rate of fashion, “you will not be able for the life 
of you, to tell a lady, at a distance, from a camel.” He warned 
the Mormon women that the Grecian Bend would result in de- 
formed children, and he said that he preferred to see a “Mormon 
Bend.” Another source of offense to Brigham Young’s eyes was 
the length of women’s dresses. ‘You know,” he once said, “‘it is 
the custom of some here to have a long trail of cloth dragging 
after them through the dirt; others, again, will have their dresses 
so short that one must shut his eyes, or he cannot help seeing their 
garters. Excuse me for the expression; but this is true, and it is 
not right.” *’ To illustrate the importance of using enough ma- 
terial in the waist as well as the skirt, Brigham Young told an 
anecdote in one of his sermons? “I will relate a circumstance 
which I heard, that took place in the metropolis of our country. 
A gentleman, a stranger, was invited to a grand dinner party 
there. The ladies of course were dressed in the height of fashion, 
their trails dragging behind them, and their—well, I suppose there 
was a band over the shoulder to the waist, but I do not recollect 
whether the gentleman said there was or not; but one gentleman 
present, who knew this gentleman was a stranger, said to him, 
with all the loveliness and elegance in his heart that one could 
imagine—‘Is not this beautiful? Did you ever see the like of 
this?’ ‘No, sir,’ said the party questioned, ‘never since I was 
weaned.’ Well, all this, you know, is custom and fashion.”’ ** 

Brigham Young would have been strenuously opposed to 
bobbed hair, for on July 19, 1877, he remarked in a sermon, 
“You see a girl with her hair clipped off in the front of her head; 
she looks as though she had just come out of a lunatic asylum.” 
His ideal of feminine beauty was a combination of simplicity and 
cleanliness, and he once expressed his preferences in an interest- 
ing sermon: 


- “My wives dress very plainly, but I sometimes ask them the utility 
of some of the stripes and puffs which I see on their dresses. I 
86 Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, pp. 18-10. 


87 Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, p. 103. 
88 Journal of Discourses, vol. 15, p. 30. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY | 317 


remember asking a lady this question once, and enquired if they kept \ 
the bed bugs and flies away. Well, if they do that they are very 
useful; but if they do not, what use are they? None whatever. Now 
some ladies will buy a cheap dress, say a cheap calico, and they will 
spend from five to fifteen dollars’ worth of time in making it up, 
which is wasting so much of the substance which God has given 
them on the lust of the eye, and which should be devoted to a better 
purpose. I have had an observation made to me which I believe I 
will relate; I never have done it, but I believe I will now. It has 
been said to me—‘Yes, brother Brigham, we have seen ladies go to 
parties in plain, home-made cloth dresses, but every man was after 
the girls who had on a hundred dollars’ worth of foll-the-roll, and 
they would dance with every woman and girl except the one in a 
plain dress, and they would let her stay by the wall the whole eve- 
ning.’ It may be in some cases, but should not be. It adds no beauty 
to a lady, in my opinion, to adorn her with fine feathers. When I 
look at a woman, I look at her face, which is composed of her fore- 
head, cheeks, nose, mouth and chin, and I like to see it clean, her 
hair combed neat and nice, and her eyes bright and sparkling; and 
if they are so, what do I care what she has on her head, or how or 
of what material her dress is made? Not the least in the world. If 
a woman is clean in person, and has on a nice clean dress, she looks 
a great deal better when washing her dishes, making her butter or 
cheese, or sweeping her house, than those who, as I told them in 
Provo, walked the streets with their spanker jib flying. . . Do not 
fine feathers look well? Yes, they are very pretty, but. they look 
just as well on these dolls, these fixed up machines which they have 
in the stores, as anywhere else; they certainly add nothing to the 
beauty of a lady or gentleman, so far as I ever saw.” *° 


Whatever may have been Brigham Young’s esthetic reasons for 
favoring simplicity in dress and home manufacture of it,, the 
economics of his position is explained by the fact that during his, 
. long life he had twenty-seven wives and thirty-one daughters. 
“~The Mormon women, Brigham Young said, should emulate the 
angels, and in one of his sermons he told them how a female angel 
did not dress: 


“Suppose that a female angel were to come into your house and 
you had the privilege of seeing her, how would she be dressed? Do 
you think she would have a great, big peck measure of flax done up 
like hair on the back of the head? Nothing of the kind. Would 
she have a dress dragging two or three yards behind? Nothing of 


39 Journal of Discourses, vol. 18, pp. 74-75. 


318 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the kind. Would she have a great, big—what is it you call it? A 
Grecian or Dutch— Well, no matter what you call it, you know 
what I mean. Do you think she would have on anything of that 
kind? Not at all. No person in the world would expect to see 
an angel dressed in such a giddy, frivolous, nonsensical style. She 
would be neat and nice, her countenance full of glory, brilliant, 
bright, and perfectly beautiful, and in every act her gracefulness 
would charm the heart of every beholder. There is nothing need- 
less about her. None of my sisters believe that these useless, fool- 
ish fashions are followed in heaven. Well, then, pattern after good 
and heavenly things, and let the beauty of your garments be the 
workmanship of your own hands, that which adorns your bodies.” *° 


From Brigham Young’s description one would conclude that a 
female angel was never much of an expense to her husband. 

In the effort to standardize the dress of the Mormon women, 
and to prevent the extremes which he dwelt upon so often of a 
dress which was so long that it dragged dirt, or so short that it 
revealed the tops of the stockings, Brigham Young designed*a, | 
costume for the Mormon women, which consisted of a modest | 
/ sunbonnet and a simple cape, but only a few of them wore it for | 
_ a short time, and he was compelled until the last years of his life 
to continue his propaganda against the extravagant absurdities of 
“fashion. He had been successful in dictating to his people on 
almost every subject, but this was one on which he was destined 
to fail because of the force of personality arrayed against him. 

Brigham Young did not omit references to. the vanity and 
immodesty of men’s clothes in his discussion of dress. He said, 
often in the pulpit that he himself preferred homespun for his 
own use, but that he always appeared in black broadcloth because ) 
his wives and daughters insisted that he dress carefully arid 
luxuriously: “If they were to say, ‘Brother Brigham, wear your 
home-made, we like to see you in it, I would give away my 
broadcloth, but to please the dear creatures I wear almost any- 
thing.” ‘To the young men he once spoke his mind on the subject 
of their tight trousers: 


“There is a style of pantaloons very generally worn, about which 
I would say something if there were no ladies here. When I first 
saw them I gave them a name. I never wore them; I consider them 
uncomely and indecent. But why is it that they are worn so gen- 


40 Journal of Discourses, vol. 16, p. 21. 


PURITAN POLYGAMY 319 


erally by others? Because they are fashionable. If it were the 
fashion to go with them unbuttoned I expect you would see plenty 
of our Elders wearing them unbuttoned. This shows the power that 
fashion exerts over the majority of minds. You may see it in the 
theater; if you had attended ours recently you might have seen that 
that was not comely; you might have seen Mazeppa ride, with but 
a very small amount of clothing on. In New York I am told it is 
much worse. I heard a gentlemen say that a full dress for Mazeppa 
there was one Government stamp. I do not know whether it is so 
or not. Fashion has great influence everywhere, Salt Lake not 
excepted.’ +4 


Heber Kimball was more vehement in his denunciation of tight 
trousers for men when he discussed them one Sunday morning 
from a hygienic point of view: 


“T am opposed to your nasty fashions and everything you wear 
for the sake of fashion. Did you ever see me with hermaphrodite 
pantaloons on? (Voice: ‘Fornication pantaloons.’) Our boys are 
weakening their backs and their kidneys by girting themselves up 
as they do; they are destroying the strength of their loins and tak- 
ing a course to injure their posterity. 

“Now, just look at me. I have no hips projecting out; they are 
straight down with my sides. I am serious myself, although I can 
smile and laugh when IJ am serious; but these ridiculous fashions I 
despise, and God knows I despise anything that will tend to destroy 
the lives of my sisters. What is your existence worth to your It 
is worth everything to your posterity; and you ought to consider 
their interest as well as your own. 

“There is not a woman in this congregation but would be as 
straight as I am, if she did not destroy her shape. .. 

“You may take all such dresses and new fashions, and inquire 
into their origin, and you will find, as a general thing, they are pro- 
duced by the whores of the great cities of the world—London, New 
York, and from Paris, and from all the Gentile cities. 

“Now, if you are determined to destroy yourselves, I am per- 
fectly willing, providing you do not destroy the fruit of your loins; 
but many of you are taking a course to destroy that by your ridicu- 
lous fashions. . . . Do not desire your children or your children’s 
children to stop their growth, and do not you take a course to render 
them impotent and imbecile. I am talking to you, ladies; and then, 
again, I am talking to you, gentlemen, that wear those hermaphrodite 
pantaloons.” *? 


41 Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, p. 21. 
42 Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, pp. I91-193. 


320 | BRIGHAM YOUNG 


It is easy to realize from the sermons of Brigham Young and 
his associates that the institution of polygamy was not permitted 
to engender in the Mormon community a tendency towards silken 
boudoirs and Moslem divans. Polygamy, as practised by Brigham 
'Young’s adherents and as preached by him, was a growth on the 

native Puritanism of the Mormon fathers and forefathers. They 
suppressed rigorously all the externals of its inherent sensuality. 
Neatness was preferred to beauty, and economy to adornment.” A 
thing of beauty was never accepted as its own excuse for exist- 
ence, because it interfered with the stern exigencies of a pioneer 
civilization. This, perhaps, was what led Mark Twain to conclude 
concerning polygamy: 


“Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and 
therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the 
workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions 
preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more 
to the matter. I had the will to doit. With the gushing self-suffi- 
ciency of youth I was feverish to plunge headlong and achieve a 
great reform here—until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was 
touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed towards 
these poor, ungainly, and pathetically ‘homely’ creatures, and as I 
turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, ‘No—the 
man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity 
which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh 
censure—and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed 
of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand 
uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.” *° 


43 Roughing It, vol. 1, pp. 121-122. 


Chapter VIII 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 
I? 


One of the subjects of popular speculation in the United States © 
from 1852 until 1877 was the number and quality of Brigham 
Young’s wives. Estimates in the newspapers ranged from forty 
to two hundred, and the editor of the London Daily Telegraph 
said, on what he considered good American authority, that some 
of Brigham Young’s wives were old enough to be his grand- 
mothers and the rest young enough to be his granddaughters. 
Artemus Ward told his audiences, “I undertook to count the long 
stockings, on the clothes-line, in his back yard one day, and I 
used up the multiplication table in less than half an hour.” Arte- 
mus Ward had previously estimated the number of Brigham 
Young’s wives as eighty, but he later said of this calculation: “I 
have somewhere stated that Brigham Young is said to have 
eighty wives. I hardly think he has so many. Mr. Hyde, the 
backslider, says in his book that ‘Brigham always sleeps by him- 
self, in a little chamber behind his office; and if he has eighty 
wives I don’t blame him. He must be bewildered. I know very 
well that if I had eighty wives of my bosom I should be con- 
fused, and shouldn’t sleep anywhere.’ Inquisitive visitors to 
Salt Lake City were in the habit of counting the number of doors 
and windows in Brigham Young’s houses in an attempt to esti- 
mate the exact number of his wives. One day he was seen riding 
in a large carriage with some of his children and some of his 
neighbors; the report was sent east that Brigham Young had 
sixteen wives and fourteen children, for some one had counted 
the occupants of the coach. Of this report Brigham Young re- 
marked, ‘But this does not begin to be the extent of my posses- 
sions, for I am enlarging on the right hand and on the left, and 
shall soon be able, Abraham like, to muster the strength of my 
house, and take my rights, asking no favors of Judges or Secre- 
321 


322 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


taries.”’ One lady visitor asked Brigham Young if she might 
see his wives, to which he replied, “They are not on exhibition;, 


madam.” The extent of Brigham Young’s possessions in money. 


cand wives was the subject of rumor on the streets of Salt Lake. 
City among the oracles of the curb. One of these told a writer 
from the East when asked whether Brigham was very rich, “Oh, 
yes, he has eight million in the Bank of England.” The informer 
was unable to say whether the eight million were pounds, shil- 
lings, pence, or dollars, but he was certain that the amount was 
eight million something. “Wives!” he exclaimed, “do you know 
that he has them in every part of Utah? He has got more than 
a thousand scattered around.” 

Brigham Young usually refused either to affirm or to deny the 
rumors of the extent of his family. He rather enjoyed the 
speculation, and he whetted the curiosity of the public by saying 
nothing, but giving the impression that they really did not know 
the half of his prosperity. He once urged the people to take their 
wives and families for excursions in the country around Salt 
Lake City, and in his sermon stated his intention to do so him- 
self. “Though,” he said, “you know what they say about me in 
the east; should I take my ninety wives and their children, with 
carriages and waggons enough to convey them, it would make 
such a vacuum here, and so many others would wish to go, that 
there would be no Salt Lake City. I think I will take a few of 
them, but I dare not take the whole, for if I did they would then 
know how many wives I have got, and that would not do.”’ 

The subject of Brigham Young’s wives was a great source of 
income to the professional wifs of the day. Mark Twain, George 
D, Prentice, and Artemus Ward, besides innumerable anonymous 
newspaper humorists, commented, whenever the opportunity of- 
fered, on Brigham Young’s family life. When Brigham Young 
said in a sermon that he supposed he had a great deal more influ- 
ence in Utah than Moses had among the children of Israel, George 
D. Prentice commented: “Very likely. But not more than Moses 
might have had if the children had been his own instead of 
Israel’s.””, Artemus Ward wrote an imaginary interview with 
Brigham Young, which was published in a magazine a few years 
before the humorist visited Salt Lake City to study the Mormons 
at first hand as a source of humor. Ward was very much worried 
when he finally arrived in Salt Lake City that his statements 
would prejudice Brigham Young and his associates and lead to 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES — 323 


difficulties. Brigham Young was somewhat annoyed by the arti- 
cle, which he had read, but he consented to meet Artemus Ward, 
and he did not mention the article. The humorist was treated 
with great courtesy, nursed by the Mormons when he was taken 
seriously ill with mountain fever, and given facilities for investi- 
gation. The only reference to the embarrassing article was a 
quiet remark by one of the elders to Artemus Ward that it was the 
opinion among the Mormons that he would have done better to 
have visited them before writing about them instead of after- 
wards. In the light of the following quotation, which comprises 
the main part of Artemus Ward's premature, imaginative article, 
this treatment was extremely liberal: 


“You air a marrid man, Mister Yung, I bleeve?’ sez I, preparin 
to rite him sum free parsis. 

“*T hev eighty wives, Mister Ward. I sertinly am marrid.’ 

“ ‘Tow do you like it as far as you hev got?’ sed I. 

“He sed ‘middlin, and axed me wouldn't I like to see his 
famerly, to which I ‘replide that I wouldn’t mind minglin with the 
fair Seck & Barskin in the winnin smiles of his interestin wives. 
He accordingly tuk me to his Scareum. The house is powerful big 
& in a exceedin large room was his wives & children, which larst was 
squawkin and hollerin enuff to take the roof rite orf the house. The 
wimin was of all sizes and ages. Sum was pretty & sum was plane— 
sum was helthy and sum was on the Wayne—which is verses, tho 
sich was not my intentions, as I don’t prove of puttin verses in 
Proze rittins, tho ef occashun requires I can Jerk a Poim ekal to any 
of them Atlantic Munthly fellers. 

“ “My wives, Mister Ward,’ sed Yung. 

“*Your sarvant, marms, > sed I, as I sot down in a cheer which a 
red-headed female brawt me. 

“Besides these wives you see here, Mister Ward,’ sed ae | 
hav eighty wives more in varis parts of this consecrated land which 
air Sealed to me.’ 

“Which? sez I, gittin up & starin at him. 

“ “Sealed, Sir! sealed.’ 

*“Whare bowts?’ sez I. - 

““T sed, Sir, that they was sealed!’ He spoke in a traggerdy voice. 

Will ‘they probly continner on in that stile to any grate extent, 
Sir?’ I axed. 

“Sir,” sez he turnin red as a biled beet, ‘don’t you know that the 
rules of our Church is that I, the Profit, may hev as many wives as 
I wants?’ 

“*Tes so,’ I sed. ‘You are old pie, ain’t you?’ 


324 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“Them as is Sealed to me—that is to say, to be mine when I 
wants um—air at present my speeretooul wives,’ sed Mister Yung. 

“Tong may thay wave!’ sez I, seein | shood git into a scrape 
ef I didn’t look out. 

“Tn a privit conversashun with Brigham I learnt the follerin fax: 
It takes him six weeks to kiss his wives. He don’t do it only onct a 
yere & sez it is wuss nor cleanin house. He don’t pretend to know 
his children, thare is so many of um, tho they all know him. He 
sez about every child he meats call him Par, & he takes it for grantid 
Ttsts $0254) 4) 


Brigham Young did not object to, nor was he hurt by, much of 
this part of Artemus Ward’s sketch. What offended him was 
the statement with which Artemus Ward ended his imaginary 
conversation, especially since it was the moral judgment of a 
man who had never visited those he described, and whose busi- 
ness, as we may gather from the above, was not primarily 
moral judgment: “I girded up my Lions & fled the Seen. | 
packt up my duds & left Salt Lake, which is a 2nd Soddum & 
Germorrer, inhabited by as theavin & onprincipled a set of retchis 
as ever drew Breth in eny spot on the Globe.”’ Even the studied 
misspelling fails to relieve this statement of its harsh and angry 
invective. After he had enjoyed the opportunity of a visit to the 
Mormons, Artemus Ward was sorry he had ever written that 
hypercritical paragraph. 

Artemus Ward, after he visited the Mormons, delivered a lec- 
ture upon them in the eastern states and in England. He could 
not resist commenting on the mother-in-law aspect of polygamy, 
and he said among other things concerning Brigham Young: “I 
saw his mother-in-law while I was there. I can’t exactly tell you 
how many there is of her—but it’s a good deal. It strikes me that 
one mother-in-law is about enough to have in a family—unless 
you’re very fond of excitement.’’ This subject of the mother-in- 
law in polygamy was once earnestly discussed by Joseph F. Smith, 
one of Brigham Young’s successors to the Presidency, who said 
in the course of a lecture to the young men and young women of 
Utah: “Many people in this world joke about their mothers-in- 
law, as if to have a mother-in-law is one of the curses of hu- 
manity. I want to say now, to you all, that the best friends I 
ever had have been my mothers-in-law. I loved and honored them 
and shall ever hold their memory sacred. They were true women 
and worthy of their daughters.” 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 325 


vig 


The study of genealogy has become widespread in Utah, where 
its intricacies afford all the fascination of an ingenious puzzle. 
In addition to the labyrinthine enchantments of Mormon family 
trees, however, the accuracy of their genealogy has a religious 
significance for the Mormons because they believe in and practise 
baptism for the dead.- They baptize for their remote ancestors, 
and the more ancestors they can find the more they can baptize 
for by proxy, and the richer they will eventually be in relatives 
in heaven. This has always seemed to them a boon worth striving 
for painstakingly. Fortunately for the historian and biographer 
there is a Utah Genealogical Society and a Utah Genealogical and 
Historical Magazine, which has compiled and published the com- 
plete family history of Brigham Young, so that it is possible to 
give exact information concerning the numbers of his wives and 
children, who were not so countless as the numbers of their stock- 
ings hanging on the line. 

Brigham Young once expressed his attitude towards women: 
“T will acknowledge,” he said in a sermon, “with brother Kimball, 
and I know it is the case with him, that I am a great lover of 
women. In what particular? I love to see them happy, to see 
them well fed and well clothed, and I love to see them cheerful. 
I love to see their faces and talk with them, when they talk in 
righteousness; but as for anything more, I do not care. There 
are probably but few men in the world who care about the private 
society of women less than I do. I also love children, and I de- 
light to make them happy.” It would seem that he also loved 
to marry women and beget children, unless we can believe that he 
only saw his duty before God and carried it out nobly when he 
“married twenty-seven wives and helped bring into the world fifty- 
six children. 
~—As we have seen, Brigham Young’s first wife, Miriam Works, 
died soon after she and her husband were baptized into the 
Mormon Church. They were married when he was twenty-three 
years old and she was eighteen. A few years after her death he 
married at Kirtland Mary Ann Angel, who was then thirty years 
old, when he was thirty-two. Mary Ann Angel had always been 
more interested in religion than in marriage; she was of Puritan 
stock and a Free Will Baptist before she met Brigham Young. 
She spent her adolescence and early youth studying the Scriptures 


326 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


diligently, and she decided never to marry until she met a man of 
God. When Brigham Young arrived in Kirtland, she apparently 
recognized in him the ideal combination of husband and pastor » 
which she so much desired. The editors of the Utah Genealogical 
and Historical Magazine wrote of her: “In looks she always sug- 
gested the portraits of Martha Washington the ‘Mother’ of our 
Country.”” But, unlike the Mother of her country, she was not 
childless, but bore Brigham Young stx children, including a set of 
twins, one of whom died in infancy. In later years, when the 
wives began to multiply, Mary Ann Angel was known as “Mother 
Young.” 

Brigham Young married his first polygamous wife on June 15, 
1842, at Nauvoo. She was Lucy Ann Decker, who was twenty 
years old when Brigham Young married her; he was then forty- 
one. She bore him seven children. A year and a half later, on 
November 2, 1843, he married Harriet Elizabeth Campbell Cook, 
who was then nineteen years old, when her husband was forty-two, 
and on the same day he married Augusta Adams, who was then 
forty-one years old. Harriet Elizabeth Campbell Cook bore one 
son, Oscar Brigham Young, but Augusta Adams bore no chil- 
dren. Six months later, on May 8, 1844, Brigham Young mar- 
ried Clara Decker, the sister of his first polygamous wife, Lucy 
Ann Decker. She was six years younger than her sister, being 
exactly sixteen years old on her marriage day, when Brigham 
Young was one month short of forty-three. Clara Decker was 
the wife who accompanied Brigham Young in the party of pio- 
neers to Utah. She bore him five children. 

In September of 1844 Brigham Young married two women. 
On the 1oth of the month he married Clarissa Ross, who was 
then thirty years old. She bore him four children. At some 
other time during September he married Emily Dow Partridge, 
who was then twenty years old, and who had been married to 
Joseph Smith the year before her marriage to Brigham Young. 
In the meantime Joseph Smith had been assassinated, and Brig- 
ham Young began dutifully to take over some of his wives. 
Emily Dow Partridge, who had borne no children to the Prophet, 
bore seven to Brigham Young. In February of 1845 Brigham 
Young married another of Joseph Smith’s widows, Olive Grey 
Frost, who died in the following October without bearing any 
children. On April 30, 1845, he married Emmeline Free, who 
was the mother of ten of his children, In the same year, 1845, 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES — 327 


he also married Margaret Pierce, who had been the wife of one 
Morris Whitesides; her first husband had died six months before 
she became the tenth wife of Brigham Young, and, considerately, 
they named their first child Brigham Morris Young. She was 
twenty-two years old at the time of the marriage, when Brigham 
Young was forty-four. 

The year 1846 was a year of many marriages for Brigham 
Young. It was the last year of the residence of the Mormons in 
Nauvoo, and perhaps he felt that he did not know when he would 
have an opportunity to marry again, for during that year he took 
eight wives. The hurry was so great, for the Mormons. were 
preparing to leave Nauvoo, that Brigham Young married two 
women at a time on several days. On January 14, 1846, he mar- 
ried Louisa Beman, who had been one of Joseph Smith’s wives. 
She was thirty-one years old when Brigham Young married her, 
and she bore two sets of twins, the first set being named appro- 
priately Joseph and Hyrum, after their mother’s first husband 
and his brother, and their father’s Prophet and friend. The 
second set was named Alva and Alma respectively. They all died 
in infancy. On that same 14th of January, 1846, Brigham Young 
also married Margaret Maria Alley, who was then twenty years 
old, when her husband was forty-four. She bore him two chil- 
dren. 

One week later, on January 21, 1846, Brigham Young spent 
an exciting day. He married four women. The first of these was 
Susan Snively, thirty years old, who bore no children, but who 
adopted a daughter, Julia, and she was raised as a member of the 
already large family. Then Brigham Young married Ellen Rock- 
wood, a seventeen-year-old girl, who bore no children. Brigham 
Young then rested for lunch, and married in the afternoon Maria 
Lawrence, who had been one of the wives of Joseph Smith, and 
Martha Bowker, who was a Quakeress by birth. Neither of these 
women bore children. It will be observed that this eventful day, 
January 21, 1846, while it was a busy one, was not prolific of 
offspring, for none of the wives Brigham Young married on that 
day became a mother. 

Twelve days after this quadruple marriage Brigham Young 
married Zina Diantha Huntington. She had one child by Brig- 
ham Young, and added to the family two children by another mar- 
riage. She was twenty-five years old at the time of her marriage 
‘to Brigham Young, and had been married to Henry Jacobs, from 


398 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


whom she was separated. Joseph Smith, the Prophet, married 
her in 1841, and after Smith’s death she became the wife of 
Brigham Young and did not change thereafter. On the day after 
this marriage, February 3, 1846, Brigham Young married 
Naamah Kendel Jenkins Carter. About six months before he 
married her himself, Brigham Young had married her to John 
Saunders Twiss, who died a few months later. After her mar- 
riage to Brigham Young at the age of twenty-five, she always 
signed her name, Naamah Kendel Jenkins Carter Twiss Young. 
That was the last of Brigham Young’s marriages in Nauvoo, for 
about one week later he left with the first group of Mormon 
refugees. Thus far he had married, including those wives who 
had died, nineteen women, and was living with seventeen of them. 

While he was traveling across Iowa, Brigham Young married 
twice, both times on the same day, March 20, 1847. He married 
that day Mary Jane Bigelow, who was then twenty years old, 
and her sister, Lucy Bigelow, who was then sixteen years old. 
Brigham Young was then forty-five. Mary Jane bore no chil- 
dren, but her sister Lucy was the mother of three. 

Brigham Young did not marry again until he was settled com- 
fortably in Utah.. On June 29, 1849, he married Eliza Roxey 
Snow, the Mormon poetess, whom we have quoted frequently. 
She had been the wife of Joseph Smith and was the sister of 
one of Brigham Young’s main associates, Lorenzo Snow. She 
was then forty-five years old, when he was forty-eight ; she had no 
children. Two years before he married her Brigham Young had 
given her a home in his family. 

On October 3, 1852, soon after polygamy was publicly pro- 
claimed, Brigham Young married Eliza Burgess, who was then 
twenty-four years old. He was fifty-one at the time. Eliza 
Burgess was an English girl of a poor family. She saw Brigham 
Young soon after her emigration and fell in love with him, but 
apparently she did not dare aspire to be his wife. She read, 
however, in the Old Testament that Jacob served seven years for 
a wife, and she read in the New Testament that “old things shall 
pass away and all things shall become new.” She interpreted 
this to mean that a reversal of Jacob’s servitude was permissible 
in the latter days, and she offered herself to Mother Young as 
a servant for seven years, demanding as her only reward that at 
the end of that time she be permitted to become one of Brigham 
Young’s wives. Brigham Young was consulted on this novel 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 329 


plan, and he had no objections to offer to Eliza’s literal interpreta- 
tion of select passages from the Bible. Perhaps he was even a 
little flattered. Eliza served faithfully for seven years, receiving 
nothing but her food, her board, and the sight of Brigham Young 
with the privilege of working for him, however indirectly. At 
the end of her time she was married to Brigham Young. She 
was made very happy by the birth of a son, and she enjoyed the 
satisfaction of seeing Brigham Young fondle her child and call 
him his “English boy.” 

Brigham Young now began to grow into middle age, and his » 
marriages became fewer and farther between. Four years” 
‘elapsed after his marriage to Eliza Burgess before he married 
Harriet Barney, who was then twenty-five years old. He was 
fifty-four. She had been married young and divorced her first 
husband. She brought three children by her first husband into 
Brigham Young’s enormous household and bore him one child. 
They were married on March 14, 1856. 

Brigham Young did not marry again for seven years, and then, 
at the age of sixty-one, he fell passionately in love. Harriet 
Amelia Folsom, who dropped the Harriet after her marriage to 
Brigham Young, for there were already several by that name in 
the family, was a tall, fair woman of twenty-five, who came to 
Utah with her parents in 1862; they had all been Mormons, how- 
ever, for many years. Amelia could play the piano, and she 
could sing “Fair Bingen on the Rhine.” Brigham Young was 
captivated both by her appearance and by her accomplishments ; 
none of his other wives was so tall, so handsome, and so refined, 
and none of his other wives could sing “Fair Bingen on the 
Rhine.” For hours every day Brigham Young’s carriage was seen 
outside Mrs. Folsom’s door, the horses stamping with boredom 
and swishing the flies with their tails, while their master never 
seemed to tire of the company inside the house. It is said too 
that at this time Brigham Young began to pay some attention to 
his full beard and his thin brown hair, which suddenly began to 
curl carefully. He also changed his homespun for broadcloth on 
week-days. Those who watched the progress of this romance 
with the careful attention of eager gossips also said that there 
were rivals, and that the President, Prophet, Seer, and Reve- 
lator discouraged at least one of these rivals by patting him sig- 
nificantly on the shoulder, thereby indicating with an additional 
meaning gesture that it would be well for him to retire from the 


330 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


chase. Another of the rivals, it is said, was sent suddenly on 
a mission to convert the heathen in far-away lands. 

But, in spite of, or perhaps because of, all these precautions 
and all this solicitude, Amelia remained reluctant. She would 
not walk, she would not talk with the Prophet-President, and she 
was not thrilled by his offer of the keys of heaven. Twice, it is 
said, the Endowment House was warmed for the ceremony of 
marriage, and twice Brigham Young was disappointed. Finally, 
it was made clear to Amelia that her marriage to Brigham Young 
was the will of the Lord. Her parents, devout Mormons, pointed 
out that Brigham Young said so himself, and he was the only 
successor as Prophet, Seer, and Revelator in these latter days to 
the original Joseph Smith. 

On January 24, 1863, Amelia Folsom became the bride of 
Brigham Young. And after all this trouble in getting her consent 
to the marriage, Brigham Young was arrested soon after it took 
place on a charge under the new anti-polygamy law, which had 
been passed by Congress the year before. However, he was not 
long in jail in the state where he was the most important per- 
sonage. 

Before she finally consented to marry Brigham Young, Amelia 
Folsom exacted many promises, which she proceeded to enforce 
as soon as they were married. She refused, for one thing, to live 
with the other wives in the two large buildings with their many 
quaint dormer windows, which Brigham Young had built to house 
his families. He built Amelia a house of her own, which was 
known throughout Utah for many years as “A melia’s Palace.” 
She immediately took the position of head of the harem, which 
had at various times been occupied by other favorites, for, how- 
ever divine the institution and impartial the intention, even Brig- 
ham Young could not avoid preferences in personalities. By 
virtue of her temper and determination Amelia held both Brig- 
ham Young and the other wives in a position subordinate to her 
will. She had fine clothes, which were not at all influenced by 
the ideas of fashion and economy which her husband expressed 
so vehemently in the pulpit; she had jewelry, and she had plenty 
of money to spend, as well as a carriage of her own. Whenever 
they went to the theater which Brigham Young had built in Salt 
Lake City, Amelia occupied'the seat of honor next to her distin- 
guished husband in his box, while the other wives occupied the 
special row of chairs reserved for them in the parquet. Whenever 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 331 


Brigham Young went south for the winter on tours of inspection 
and for his health, Amelia now accompanied him, and she was 
soon generally recognized by the Mormons as the favorite. As 
such she was both feared and envied. In the dining-room where 
the whole family always ate together, Brigham Young and Amelia 
sat at a small table at the head of the room, while all the 
rest of the large family occupied a large table extending from the 
throne seats. Ann Eliza Young, who was somewhat biased and 
somewhat spiteful, as we shall see, wrote in her book of revela- 
tion concerning the household of her husband that the small table 
received many delicacies which were not served to the general 
multitude. Ann Eliza wrote bitterly, “Polygamist, as he pro- 
fesses to be, he is under the influence of Amelia, rapidly becom- 
ing a monogamist, in all except the name.” * Amelia Folsom had 
no children. 

Although Amelia Folsom exercised a great influence on her 
husband, that influence did not prevent subsequent marriages. 
Two years after they were married, Brigham Young married 
Mary Van Cott, on January 8, 1865. She was twenty-one, and 
he was sixty-three. She had been married before, and one of 
her daughters by that marriage later married one of Brigham 
Young’s sons, John W. Young. She bore Brigham Young one 
child. mp, 

On April 6, 1868, when he was sixty-six years old, Brigham 
Young had his last, and his only disastrous, marital experience.” 
Te married Ann Eliza Webb, who was then twenty-four years 
old. She had been married five years before to James L. Dee. 
When Brigham Young and she had been married for seven years, 
and when Brigham Young was seventy-four years old, Ann Eliza) 
sued him for divorce. She alleged neglect, cruelty, and desertion, 
and she demanded huge alimony. Her brief stated that Brigham 
Young was worth $8,000,000 and had an income of $40,000 a 
. month. She asked for $1,000 a month during the period of the 
‘trial and $6,000 for preliminary counsel fees, with an award of 
$14,000 on the granting of her final decree of divorce and 
$200,000 for her maintenance thereafter. Brigham Young’s 
answer denied the neglect, the cruelty, and the desertion. He also 
stated that his fortune, so far as he knew, did not exceed $600,000, 
and that his income was only $6,000 per month from all its 
sources. He offered to pay Ann Eliza $100 per month, if he was 

1Wife No. 19, by Ann Eliza Young, p. 531. 


332 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


obligated to pay her anything. Brigham Young pleaded that the 
marriage to Ann Eliza was not a legal marriage for two reasons; 
first, at the time of the marriage, she was not divorced from 
James L. Dee, and secondly because he, Brigham Young, was in 
the eyes of the law the husband only of Mary Ann Angel, the 
wife he married in Kirtland, Ohio. Brigham Young’s brief 
stated that his marriage to Ann Eliza Young was regarded as 
sacred by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but 
that it could not be considered legal by the statutes of the United 
States, which did not recognize polygamous wives as wives, but 
merely tolerated them as concubines. He contended that unless 
the court was willing to recognize the legality of plural marriage, 
which recognition he had been clamoring for during many years, 
the marriage to Ann Eliza could not be regarded as legal. 

_The purpose of Ann Eliza Young was extortion, and Brigham 
Young, realizing this, took advantage of the technicalities of the 
law in his brief. He refused to pay the $3,000 counsel fees and 
the $500 per month alimony ordered by the court before the trial, 
and he was accordingly fined twenty-five dollars for contempt of 
court and commanded to spend one day in jail. At the time he 
was in feeble health and advanced age; he went to jail accom- 
panied by his physician and nephew, Dr. Seymour B. Young. He 
spent the day and night in a comfortable room attached to the 
warden’s quarters, while his friends and associates kept guard 
outside to prevent a repetition of the tragedy of Joseph Smith. 
This was on March 11, 1875. Five days later Judge McKean, 
who had sentenced Brigham Young, was removed from his posi- 
tion, and the Mormons claim that this was a direct result of the 
storm of protest in the press of the country for tyrannical treat- 
ment of an aged and distinguished man. The treatment Brigham 
Young received, however, was not very tyrannical, and Judge 
McKean was really removed because he had exceeded his author- 
ity in many other cases. He felt that he had a God-given mission 
to perform instead of duties to carry out, and his particular God- 
given mission was the extirpation of polygamy. 

Judge MckKean’s successor, Judge David B. Lowe, decided that 
there had been no legal marriage between Brigham Young and 
Ann Eliza Young, and that therefore there could be no divorce 
and no alimony. But his successor decided that Brigham Young 
must pay alimony in arrears to the amount of $9,500 and be 
imprisoned until it was paid. The United States marshal con- 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES — 333 


siderately imprisoned Brigham Young in Brigham Young’s own 
house, with his wives. He steadfastly refused to pay the alimony, 
and he was finally released from this residential imprisonment by 
Judge White. Still another judge reduced the accumulated ali- 
mony to $100 per month, which was the amount Brigham Young 
had originally offered, and he paid that sum after the court had 
threatened to attach his property. In April, 1877, the case came 
up for final trial, and the marriage was declared illegal. Brig- 
ham Young was compelled to pay no more See but the costs 
of the trials were charged to him. 

Ann Eliza Young, though she was eiencreeatl in her effort 
to win some of Brigham Young’s fortune, became by virtue of 
her divorce suit something of an ephemeral national figure. The 
publicity gained by her divorce suit won her lecture engagements 
throughout the United States, under the auspices of women’s 
clubs, whose members were almost as interested in the Mormon 
women’s husbands as they were in their own. After the possi- 
bilities of lecture tours were exhausted, Ann Eliza wrote her 
book, Wife No. 19. When she called her book by that title, she 
was flattering herself, for she was actually Wife Number Twenty- 
seven, including those who had died. The title of her book 
sounds enticing, but the book itself does not fulfil the promise of 
the title, for she told very little that was significant about Brig- 
ham Young and his wives, although she was intimately associated 
with that extraordinary household for seven years. Her book is 
made up largely of sentimental indignation against polygamy as 
an institution with very little supporting evidence for the horrors 
which she claimed resulted from its practice. One turns from 
its pages disappointed with the authoress, who did not make nearly 
the most of her opportunities, bored with her attempts to make 
of herself a martyr, and more than ever sympathetic with the 
trials of Brigham Young. 

To sum up: Brigham Young had twenty-seven wives, although 
that many were never alive at the same time. Nine wives died 
before he died, and, if we exclude Ann Eliza Young, who left 
him, he was survived by seventeen. Brigham Young married 
twice before he was thirty-five years old, and in the period of 
five years, 1842-1847, when polygamy was first practised secretly, 
he married nineteen women. ‘The other six wives he married 
from the time of his residence in Utah until his death. Two of 
Brigham Young’s wives were sixteen years old when he married 


334 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


them, one was eighteen years old, one was nineteen, five were 
twenty, one was twenty-one, one was twenty-two, four were 
twenty-four, three were twenty-five, three were thirty, one was 
thirty-one, and two were forty-one and forty-five respectively, but 
these last two were widows of Joseph Smith, who were married | 
because Brigham Young felt it an obligation to support them in 
their old age. These widows of Joseph Smith were married by 
Brigham Young for time only, for they already had engagements _ 
with the Prophet for eternity. The other wives who had been 
divorced or whose previous husbands had died, were married by 
Brigham Young for both time and eternity, for they preferred his 
company in the other world to that of their former husbands. It 
is said that Mary Ann Angel, who was married to Brigham Young 
at Kirtland before polygamy was established and after the death 
of his first wife, was worried about her position in heaven. She 
did not know, and apparently Brigham Young could not make 
it clear, whether she would be the queen in heaven, or whether 
Miriam Works, Brigham Young’s ante-Mormon wife, would oc- 
cupy that position. ‘There was much to be said on both sides; 
Brigham Young had not been active in Mormonism during his 
association with Miriam Works, and Mary Ann Angel had been 
his first partner in polygamy, she having consented to the mar- 
riages with all the other wives, but, on the other hand, it would 
not be possible to repudiate Miriam Works, who had been faith- 
ful, and who was baptized a Mormon before she died. Frankly, 
Brigham Young and Mary Ann Angel were puzzled; it is to be 
hoped that this matter has now been straightened out to the satis- 
faction of all the parties concerned. 

Brigham Young was always proud of the interest which Mor- 
mon women showed in him. He said to the congregation one 
Sunday morning, when he was fifty-six years old: “Do you think 
that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that 
Tam young; for I could find more girls who would choose me for 
a husband than can any of the young men.’ He must have been 
conscious, however, of the possibility that the girls chose him 
for his distinction and position rather than for his manly vigor. 
Brigham Young was also sure that all women wanted to be mar- 
ried. When he was discussing polygamy with Schuyler Colfax, 
who was then Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Colfax 
argued, with some concern, that if one man had five or twenty 
wives, this abundance would cause others to be deprived of any 





SOME OF BRIGHAM YouNG’s WIVvEs 





BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 335 


wives, for it was his opinion that men and women were prac- 
tically equal in numbers throughout the world. Brigham Young 
answered that there were always some men who would never 
marry from choice, and Colfax asked if this did not also apply to 
the women. ‘There is not one woman in a million,” answered 
Brigham Young, “‘who will not marry if she gets a chance.” 

In spite of the number of his wives, Brigham Young, if we 
can believe Ann Eliza Young, never lost his interest in new 
female faces and features. Ann Eliza wrote that Brigham Young 
fell passionately in love with Julia Deane Hayne, the actress, who 
played at the Salt Lake Theater. ‘He bestowed every attention 
upon the lady,” wrote Wife No. 19, “had her portrait painted on 
his sleigh, and made her an actual offer of marriage, which she 
refused on the spot, without even taking time for consideration.” 
Some one told Ann Eliza, and she repeated it to the world, that 
Brigham Young had ordered one of his wives to be baptized for 
Julia Dean Hayne when he heard that she had died, for he was 
determined that if he could not possess her in time, he would at 
least have her in eternity. Dr. Wyl in his Mormon Portraits 
quoted Heber Kimball on Brigham Young’s interest in beautiful 
Gentile actresses. On one occasion Kimball is said to have assem- 
bled his own large family for prayers and was about to pray for 
Brigham Young. He sprang to his feet suddenly and said ex- 
citedly, “I can’t pray for him, but he needs it badly enough, for 
the greater the strumpet, the more Brother Brigham is after her.” 
Dr. Wyl wrote that he had this anecdote from a “perfectly re- 
sponsible source,” but he did not give that source. 

According to Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young and his son, 
Brigham, Jr., who was known throughout Utah as “Briggy,” 
both became interested in a new and beautiful convert, one Lizzie 
Fenton. She was courted by both father and son, and there was 
intense interest in the community to see whether youth or experi- 
ence would win. It is said that Brigham would arrive in his fine 
carriage to drive Miss Lizzie Fenton out into the country, and 
that as soon as he had left her, “Briggy’’ would hurry to the 
house and spend the rest of the day in her company. ‘This con- 
tinued for several months, and finally, Ann Eliza wrote, “Briggy”’ 
won the lady. Apparently Brigham Young, Jr., was satisfied 
with Lizzie Fenton, for many years later he composed this 
epitaph for her gravestone, and he recorded it in his diary: 


336 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“Tried in the furnace of this troubled life 
Faithful as Daughter, Mother, Woman, Wife.” ? 


In the choice of his wives, Brigham Young maintained, he was 
never guided by the desire for a dowry. He said to the congrega- 
tion one Sunday: “Some want to marry a woman because she has 
got property; some want a rich wife; but I never saw the day 
when I would not rather have a poor woman. I never saw the 
day that I wanted to be henpecked to death, for I should have been, 
if I had married a rich wife. I asked one of my family, when 
in conversation upon this very point, what did you bring, when 
you came to me? ‘I brought a shirt, and a dress, and a pair of 
slippers, and a sun-bonnet,’ and she is as high a prize as ever | 
got in my life, and a great deal higher than many would have been 
with cart loads of silver and gold.” ® 


III 


Brigham Young preached to his people that cohabitation was 
solely for the purpose of procreation, and that all sexual inter- 
course should cease with pregnancy and should not be resumed 
until after the weaning of the child. “This rule,’ wrote John 
Hyde, an apostate Mormon leader, “he endeavors to keep, al- 
though the birth of children proves him to have violated his own 
law, certainly in one woman’s exception.” Hyde did not give 
statistics for his statement, but one would think that even anti- 
Mormons would be willing to forgive as only human the one lapse 
which Hyde claimed to have discovered by the use of mathe- 
matics. Hyde also wrote: “As cohabitation is merely for the 
purpose of procreation, therefore after his wives get past child- 
bearing, they are entirely discarded. They live in his house and 
eat at his table, but all attention from him, as a husband, ceases.” * 

Whatever may have been his habits of cohabitation or his the- 
ories of procreation, Brigham Young’s marriages resulted in a 
numerous progeny. When a Utah school teacher asked her geog- 
raphy class, “What are the principal means of transportation in 
Utah?” a small boy is said to have answered promptly, “Baby 


2 Manuscript Diary of Brigham Young, Jr., p. 53. In the Manuscript Collec- 
tion of the New York Public Library. 

3 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 204. 

4 Mormonism, Its Leaders and Designs, by John Hyde, Jr., p. 156. 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES — 337 


carriages.’ There must have been a full garage of baby car- 
riages in the Brigham Young establishment, for he had a total 
of fifty-six children, thirty-one daughters and twenty-five sons, 
not including those who were adopted by childless wives or 
brought into the family from former marriages. The names of 
Brigham Young’s children in the order of their appearance are: 


Elizabeth Young Marinda Hyde Young Phebe Louisa Young 
Vilate Young Clarissa Maria Young Brigham Morris Young 
Joseph Angell Young Jeannette Richards Young Arta de Christa Young 
Brigham Young, II. Alva Young (twin) Joseph Don Carlos Young 
(twin) Alma Young (twin) Susa Young 
Mary Ann Young (twin) Zina Young Lorenzo Dow Young 
Alice Young Evelyn Louisa Young Miriam Young 
Luna Young Hyrum Smith Young Albert Jeddie Young 
John Willard Young Caroline Young Feramorz Little Young 
Brigham Heber Young Ernest I. Young Alonzo Young 
Edward Partridge Young Nabbie Howe Young Josephine Young 
Oscar Brigham Young Willard Young Clarissa Hamilton Young 
Mary Eliza Young Dora M. Young Charlotte Talula Young 
Ella Elizabeth Young Emmeline A. Young Ruth Young 
Mahonri Moriancumer Shemira Young (a Lura Young 
Young daughter ) Daniel Wells Young 


Joseph Young (twin) Alfales Young (a son) Phineas Howe Young 
Hyrum Young (twin) Jedediah Grant Young Rhoda Mabel Young 
Fanny Young Louisa Young Ardelle Young 

Emily Augusta Young Fannie Van Cott Young 


It will be noticed that except for the name of their father, few 
of the children bear the same name. There were several Josephs, 
namesakes of the Prophet and of Brigham Young’s brother of 
that name, but one of them died before the others were born. 
There were two Clarissas, one Fanny and one Fannie, but they 
were born so many years apart from each other that there was 
little chance of getting them confused. Often at least one of 
Brigham Young’s children bore the name of her mother. Some 
of the names, such as Alva and Alma and Mahonri Moriancumer, 
were taken from the Book of Mormon. Several of the children 
were named for Brigham Young’s four brothers. 

The wife who bore the largest number of children in the Young 
family was Emmeline Free Young, who, according to John Hyde, 
was Brigham’s favorite before the advent of Amelia Folsom. 
Emmeline is said to have coaxed Brigham to curl his hair and 
used to put it up for him in curl papers and hairpins every night, 
but this is difficult to picture in view of the Mormon leader’s 
determined character and dominating personality, unless we also 
remember his sense of humor. Emmeline Free Young bore ten 


338 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


children. Lucy Ann Decker, Brigham’s first wife in polygamy, 
and Emily Dow Partridge were tied for second place with seven 
children each to their credit. Brigham Young had no children 
by eleven of his wives, so that the fifty-six were borne by sixteen 
of the wives. 

During one period of his practice of polygamy the Brigham 
Young household was visited by a rapid succession of births, and 
it is said that Brigham Young asked Zina, one of his wives, to 
become a midwife, so that there might be some one always in the 
house who could assist at these functions. In 1825 Brigham 
Young’s first child, a daughter, was born, and his second was not 
born until almost five years later. This was before he had heard 
of Mormonism and the principle of cohabitation for procreation 
only. Children were born in his houses about every four months 
during the first years after Brigham Young began to practise 
polygamy in earnest. 1849 was one of Brigham Young’s most 
prolific years; five children were born into his family that year. 
A daughter was born on January 25, on March 1 another daugh- 
ter, on July 30 another daughter, and on December toth a daugh- 
ter was born, and another daughter came four days later. Five 
children were also born in 1850, but some of them died at birth. 
Brigham Young became a father in January, February, March, 
and April of 1851, and in 1852 children were born in March, 
April, and May. In 1857 only one child was born, a daughter, in 
October, but that was the year, as we shall see, of the difficulties 
with the United States government, and the temporary exodus of 
the Mormons to southern Utah; Brigham Young was both busy 
and worried during that year. In 1859 no children were born, 
and the reason is impossible to discover, for there is no record of 
illness of Brigham Young during 1858. During the sixties, when 
he had arrived beyond the age of threescore, only two children 
were born each year during the first years of the decade. On 
March 4, 1861, two daughters were born to different wives. In 
February, 1863, three children were born, one on February 9, one 
on February 15, and one on February 22. In 1865, 1867, 1868, 
and 1869 Brigham Young’s wives bore no children, but in Jan- 
uary, 1870, when he was sixty-eight and a half years old, his last 
child, a daughter, was born. 

After his visit to Utah, William Hepworth Dixon wrote: 
“Every house seems full; wherever we see a woman, she is 
nursing ; and in every house we enter two or three infants in arms 





BRIGHAM YOUNG'S TEN TALLEST DAUGHTERS 





Lorenzo Brigham Phineas Joseph John 


THE Younc BROTHERS 





BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES — 339 


are shown to us, This valley is, indeed, the true baby land. For 
a man to have twenty boys and girls in his house is a common 
fact. A merchant, with whom we were dining yesterday, could 
not tell us the number of his children until he had consulted a 
book then lying on his desk. One of his wives, a nice English 
lady, with the usual baby at her breast, smiled sweet reproof on 
his ignorance; but the fact was so; and it was only after counting 
and consulting that he could give us the exact return of his de- 
scendants. This patriarch is thirty-three years old.’ The con- 
fusion created in a polygamous father’s mind by the multiplicity of 
offspring is well illustrated by the testimony of Joseph F. Smith, 
then President of the Mormon Church, before the Smoot investi- 
gating committee of the Senate: 


“Mr. TAYLER: ‘How many children have you had by Mary since 
1890?” 

“MR. SmiTH: ‘T have had Silas, Rachel, and James.’ 

“Mr. TAYLER: ‘Whose child is Agnes?’ 

“Mr. SmiTH: ‘I meant to have said Agnes. It was a slip of the 
tongue. Silas, Agnes, and James.’ 

‘Mr. TAYLER: ‘Whose child is Samuel? 

“Mr. SmitH: ‘He is her child.’ 

“Mr. TAYLER: ‘How old is he?’ 

“Mr. Smit: ‘I could not tell you from memory.’ 

“Mr. TAYLER: ‘He is only 10 or 11 years old, is he not?’ 

“Mr. SmitH: ‘Well, I do not know exactly what his age is.’ 

“Mr. TAYLER: ‘How old is Calvin?’ 

“Mr. SmiruH: ‘Calvin is about 14—or 15.’ 

“Mr. Tayer: ‘That is, do you say 15 because—’ 

“Mr. SMITH: “14 or 15, along there. I could not tell you from 
memory. ... 

“Mr. SmitH: ‘I can furnish the committee a correct statement of 
exactly the ages and dates of my children, if I have the time to do 
it. 

“Mr. Surri: ‘I am not in the habit of carrying the dates of the 
births of my children in my mind. 

“THE CHAIRMAN (SENATOR Burrows): ‘Mr. Smith, I will not 
press it, but I will ask you if you have any objection to stating how 
many children you have in all.’ 

“Mr. Situ: ‘I have had born to me, sir, 42 children, 21 boys and 
21 girls, and I am proud of every one of them.’ ” ® 


5 Smoot Proceedings, vol. 1, p. 377. 


340 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Heber Kimball once boasted in the pulpit of the size of his 
posterity and how rapidly it would increase as the years passed. 
He asked the congregation how long they supposed it would take 
“a little man like me’ to number over a million of posterity, and 
he gave them the answer: “A hundred years will not pass away 
before I will become millions myself. You may go to work and 
reckon it up, and twenty-five years will not pass away before 
brother Brigham and [ will number more than this Territory” ; 
and the population of the Territory at the time was estimated at 
60,000. He pointed the moral: ‘‘Why do you not be profitable 
to yourselves, and put out your lives at usury?” At the time of 
his death, June 22, 1868, Heber Kimball had been the father of 
sixty-five children, and in 1882, twenty-five years after he deliv- 
ered this sermon, his direct descendants numbered 172. He had 
been the husband of forty-five wives, almost twice the number 
Brigham Young married. At the funeral of his first wife, Vilate 
Kimball, Heber, pointing to the coffin, said touchingly: “There 
lies a woman who has given me forty-four wives.’’ Kimball’s 
biographer, Orson Whitney, wrote that he often heard Heber 
Kimball calling in his “stentorian tones: “Abraham! Isaac! 
Jacob! Come in to prayers! For these names, with many 
others of Scriptural origin, were all included in his family 
nomenclature.” © 

The immense advantage that polygamy had over monogamy in 
the numbers of offspring produced was often dwelt upon by the 
Mormons. In their English propaganda periodical, the Millennial 
Star, there appeared this fascinating problem in the mathematics 
of progeny: 


“Monogamic Problem—A Monogamist married one wife. At the 
age of twenty there was born to him a son; at twenty-two a daugh- 
ter was born; at twenty-four, another son; and so on, alternately, a 
son and a daughter every two years, until his wife had borne him 
ten children. Each of his male descendants, when about nineteen 
years of age, married a wife. At the age of twenty, each, like his 
father, was blessed with a son; at twenty-two, with a daughter; the 
increase, thereafter, being the same, in all respects, as in the family 
of the father. The female descendants remained unmarried. When 
this Monogamist became seventy-eight years old, what did his family 
number, including himself? 

“Polygamic Problem.—Mr. Fruitful, a Polygamist, married forty 


8 Life of Heber C. Kimball, by Orson F. Whitney, pp. 433, 436. 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 341 


wives. At the age of twenty, he had ten sons and ten daughters 
born; and each following year he had ten sons and ten daughters 
born, until each wife had borne him ten children. His male de- 
scendants, shortly after becoming nineteen years of age, married 
forty wives each. And at the age of twenty, each began to increase 
in children, the same, in all respects, as in the family of the father. 
The female descendants remained unmarried. When this Polyga- 
mist became seventy-eight years old, what did his family number, 
including himself?” 


The good Mormon families in England who subscribed to the 
Millennial Star gathered round the fire and figured out this in- 
tensely human problem, and awaited anxiously the answers, which 
were printed two weeks later in their favorite periodical : 


“Answers to the Monogamic and Polygamic Problems, Published 
in the 24th Number of the ‘Star.—The family of the Monogamist, 
when he was seventy-eight years old would number one hundred and 
fifty-two. 

“The family of the Polygamist, when he was seventy-eight years 
old, would number, Three millions, five hundred and eight thousand, 
four hundred and forty-one. 

“The answers to these interesting problems, show the immense 
superiority of Polygamy over Monogamy in the multiplication of 
the human species. With a knowledge of these mathematical facts, 
no one has any cause to wonder why the Almighty instituted 
Polygamy among the righteous in ancient times. It was the most 
effectual means of rapidly multiplying a righteous seed upon the 
earth. The restoration of the same divine law among the righteous 
of the nineteenth century, will produce the same important effects. 
Under the salutary influence of the heavenly and divine institution 
of Polygamy, the righteous, in the peaceful vales of Utah, can, with 
Isaiah, joyfully exclaim, ‘4 little one shall become a thousand, and 
a small one a strong nation’ ‘Who hath heard such a thing? Who 
hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in 
one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion 
travailed she brought forth her children?” * 


From reading their ideas on the subject of polygamy one gets 
the impression that the Mormons, acting under direct instructions 
from God, were in a fearful hurry to build up an enterprising 
earth, and that their sentiments were those of a wholesaler inter- 


7 Millennial Star, vol. 19, p. 3843 p. 432. 


342 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


ested in quantity production, rather than those of an individualist 
with a passion for quality. 

The large numbers of children made birthdays and gifts mat- 
ters of great practical importance in Mormon families. Parley 
P. Pratt wrote in his journal for April 12, 1855: “April r2th— 
This is my birthday. I am forty-eight years old. I wrote letters 
for home to-day and sent a set of books, viz., Book of Mor- 
mon, Doctrine and Covenants, Hymn Book, Voice of Warning, - 
Harp of Zion, etc., to each of my wives, and to Parley, Olivia, 
and Moroni, my elder children; also books to my younger chil- 
dren, Alma, Nephi, Heleman, Julia, Lucy, Agatha, Belinda and 
Abinadi, Cornelia and Malona, and small presents and candies for 
the little ones, Phebe, Hannahette, Mary, Lehi, and Moroni W., 
all as a birthday present or memorial.” ® 

Another aspect of this phase of polygamy was imagined by 
Mark Twain when in Roughing It he wrote of the interview of 
a mythical friend with Brigham Young: 


“Sir,” said Mark Twain’s Brigham Young, “you probably did 
not know it, but all the time you were present with my children your 
every movement was watched by vigilant servitors of mine. If you 
had offered to give a child a dime, or a stick of candy, or any trifle 
of the kind, you would have been snatched out of the house instantly, 
provided it could be done before your gift left your hand. Other- 
wise it would be absolutely necessary for you to make an exactly 
similar gift to all my children—and knowing by experience the 
importance of the thing, I would have stood by and seen to it myself 
that you did it, and did it thoroughly. Once a gentleman gave one 
of my children a tin whistle—a veritable invention of Satan, sir, 
and one which I have an unspeakable horror of, and so would you 
if you had eighty or ninety children in your house. But the deed 
was done—the man escaped. I knew what the result was going to 
be, and I thirsted for vengeance. I ordered out a flock of Destroy- 
ing Angels, and they hunted the man far into the fastnesses of the 
Nevada mountains. But they never caught him. I am not cruel, 
sir—I am not vindictive except when sorely outraged—but if I had 
caught him, sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I would have locked him 
into the nursery till the brats whistled him to death. . . .” 


Although these may have been some of the trials of a father 
of fifty-six, the children sometimes profited by their numbers. In 


8 Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, p. 474. 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 343 


his eulogy of Heber C. Kimball, Orson F. Whitney revealed an 
aspect of polygamy overlooked by those men and women who 
described only its shame and its cruelties. ‘Woe betide the luck- 
less wight,” wrote Whitney, “who, even in childhood’s days, im- 
posed upon a ‘Kimball boy.’ The whole family of urchins would 
resent the insult, and that, too, with pluckiness surpassing even 
their numbers.” One of Orson Whitney’s wives was a Kimball. 

In the practical operation of plural marriage there were un- 
usual combinations of wives. Frequently two sisters were mar- 


Gee | 
| 


a i fees, 

















“Tue Bisuor’s FaAmity At Two A.M.” 
A CoNTEMPORARY CONCEPTION OF POLYGAMY 


From “Uncle Sam’s Abscess” by W. Jarman 


ried to the same man, as we have seen in the case of Brigham 
Young’s wives, and.occasionally both a mother and a daughter 
were married to the same man on the same day. Artemus Ward 
commented on this kind of marriage: “I had a man pointed out 
to me who married an entire family. He had originally intended 
to marry Jane, but Jane did not want to leave her widowed 
mother. The other three sisters were not in the matrimonial 
market for the same reason; so this gallant man married the 
whole crowd, including the girl’s grandmother, who had lost all 
her teeth, and had to be fed with a spoon. The family were in 
indigent circumstances, and they could not but congratulate them- 


344 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


selves on securing a wealthy husband. It seemed to affect the 
grandmother deeply, for the first words she said on reaching her 
new home were: ‘Now, thank God! I shall have my gruel 
reg lar!” 

Phil Robinson, the English journalist, noted in Sinners and 
Saints, his account of his visit to Salt Lake City, several cases of 
strange marriages he had heard of in the city. They read like the 
elongated titles of Boccaccio’s stories: “A young couple were en- 
gaged, but quarreled, and the lover out of pique married another 
lady. Two years later his first love, having refused other offers 
in the meantime, married him as his second wife. A man having 
married a second wife to please himself, married a third to please 
his first. ‘She was getting old, she said, and wanted a younger 
woman to help her about the house.’ A couple about to be mar- 
- ried made an agreement between themselves that the husband 
should not marry again unless it was one of the relatives of the 
first wife. The ladies selected have refused, and the husband 
remains true to his promise. A girl, distracted between her love 
for her suitor and her love for her mother, compromised in her 
affections by stipulating that he should marry both her mother 
and herself, which he did. Two girls were great friends, and 
one of them, getting engaged to a man (by no means of pre- 
possessing appearance), persuaded her friend to get engaged to 
him too, and he married them both on the same day.” 

That this custom of marrying both mother and daughter was 
\ not the imaginary fiction of visiting journalists is attested by 
‘fohn D. Lee, the Mormon bishop, in his book of confessions: 
“In the spring of 1845 Rachel Andora was sealed to me—the 
woman who has stood by me in all my troubles. A truer woman 
was never born. She has been by me true, as I was to Brigham, 
and has always tried to make my will her pleasure. I raised her 
in my family from five years of age. She was a sister of my 
first wife. Her mother, Abigail Sheffer, was sealed to me for an 
eternal state. The old lady has long since passed away, and 
entered into eternal rest and joy.” Usually the mothers were 
sealed for eternity and not married for time. 

John D. Lee also told an interesting tale of competition for 
wives between himself and Brigham Young, which illustrates well 
the advantage of Brigham Young’s position in the community in 
the eyes of Mormon mothers who were seeking distinction for 
their daughters ; 


e 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 345 


“My third wife, Louisa,” wrote Lee, “is now the first wife of 
D. H. Wells. She was then a young lady, gentle and beautiful, and 
we never had an angry word while she lived with me. She and 
her sister Emeline were both under promise to be sealed to me. One 
day Brigham Young saw Emeline and fell in love with her. He 
asked me to resign my claims in his favor, which I did, though it 
caused me a great struggle in my mind to do so, for I loved her 
dearly. I made known to Emeline Brigham’s wish, and even went 
to her father’s house several times and used my influence with her 
to induce her to become a member of Brigham’s family. The two 
girls did not want to separate from each other; however, they both 
met at my house at an appointed time and Emeline was sealed to 
Brigham, and Louisa was sealed to me. . . . By Louisa I had one 
son born, who died at the age of twelve. She lived with me about 
one year after her babe was born. She then told me that her parents 
were never satisfied to have one daughter sealed to the man highest 
in authority and the other below her. Their constant teasing caused 
us to separate, not as enemies, however. Our friendship was never 
broken. After we got into Salt Lake Valley she offered to come 
back to me, but Brigham would not consent to her so doing. Her 
sister became a favorite with Brigham, and remained so until he 
met Miss Folsom, who captivated him to a degree that he neglected 
Emeline, and she died broken-hearted.” ® 


Greater love than this hath no man for his friend and pastor. 
But John D. Lee could afford to be generous, for he had received 
from the sealing hands of Brigham Young nineteen wives, by 
whom sixty-four children were born. 


IV 


An enterprising Mormon publisher once issued a picture book 
with short biographies and photographs of Brigham Young and 
his wives. In the introduction the anonymous author remarked 
of Brigham Young: “In none of his relations did his grandeur 
of character more strikingly manifest itself than in his home. His 
well executed plans commanded the admiration of his family; 
his kindness and indulgence challenged their deepest gratitude and 
affection. His hopes and purposes, joys and sorrows, were gen- 
erally shared by his family, and with them, he enjoyed the most 
cordial relationship. His provident management secured for them 
comfortable homes, and ample provision for future needs, and to 


9 Mormonism Unveiled, by John D. Lee, p. 166. 


346 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


his happy domestic relations is ascribed much of his success in 
life.’ This writer would have us believe that Brigham Young 
owed all that he was to his wives. But if Brigham Young shared 
his joys and his sorrows with his family the celebration must 
have unintentionally taken on the nature of a mass meeting and 
the condolence that of a large and impressive funeral. 

Brigham Young once said concerning the relation between his 
wives and his business: “If I did not consider myself competent 
to transact business without asking my wife, or any other woman’s 
counsel, I think I ought to let that business alone.” Many hus- 
bands have said this, but there is reason to believe that Brigham 
Young practised it. He listened to his wives on matters of 
domestic detail, and he tried hard to give them what they wanted. 
He believed that he understood women, and it must be admitted 
that he had more experience than most men who claim that 
Utopian belief. Once he gave his more inexperienced brethren 
the benefit of his counsel on their relations with their wives: 


“T am a great lover of good women,” said Brigham Young. “TI 


understand their nature, the design of their being, and their worth. 
I have been acquainted with hundreds of men, before I came into 
this Church, who believed that, if they did not dictate every five 
dollars or fifty cents that they had in their pockets, their wives were 
ruling over them. On this point I shall differ with all who differ 
with me. If I have five dollars and I can spare it, and my wife 
wants it, I tell her she is welcome to it. What do you want to get 
with it, wife? ‘Oh, something that pleases me.’ I do not believe 
in making my authority as a husband or a father known by brute 
force; but by a superior intelligence—by showing them that I am 
capable of teaching them. If I have a wife that wants to be 
humored with five dollars, yes, take it; I would humor her. If I 
commit wrong towards my family, it is because I let them use what 
they should not, or that which I might bestow upon the poor. I 
may humor them too much. I will humor a child with everything 
I consistently can. Does not God, in his providences, bear and for- 
bear with us in our weaknesses and sins? ... 

“When I was first married, I was told that my wife would rule 
over me, because I was too indulgent; I do not think that she did. 
Wife, when you spin you may set the wheel where you please; and 
when I come in to sleep if you have moved the bed from the north- 
east corner of the room to the southeast corner it is all right, if you 
are pleased. This course is much more manly than to quarrel with 
her because she has moved the bed without your permission, or has 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES 347 


put the shovel and tongs on the left instead of on the right hand 
side of the fire place, at the same time giving her to understand 
that you are the master of the house. But wife, I have made you 
a good water bench, and a sink, and under the, sink have made a 
place for the swill pail, and I would like to have you to keep the 
pails in their respective places. If you will put the swill pail where 
the water pail should be, I must go somewhere else to drink water, 
and not run the risk of drinking out of the swill pail in the night. 
I can show you wife, where to put everything in your house. If she 
wants so many tucks in her dress, put in as many as you want, for 
you have to spin and weave the cloth; make the dress as you please, 
that is your business; and if I have five dollars that is not otherwise 
appropriated you are welcome to it. But if I have five dollars in 
my pocket I owe and have promised to pay to-morrow morning, it 
must be paid. 

“Tf a woman can rule a man and he not know it, praise to that 
woman. They are very few who know well the office of a woman 
from that of a man. Imbecility is marked upon the people of the 
present age. All who have their eyes open to see and their minds 
enlightened to understand things as they are, will subscribe readily 
to this declaration, When the servants of God in any age have con- 
sented to follow a woman for a leader, either in a public or a 
family capacity, they have sunk beneath the standard their organiza- 
tion has fitted them for; when a people of God submit to that, their 
Priesthood is taken from them, and they become as any other people. 
_“T shall humor the wife as far as I can consistently; and if you 
have any crying to do, wife, you can do that along with the children, 
for I have none of that kind of business to do. Let our wives be 
the weaker vessels, and the men be men, and show the women by 
their superior ability that God gives husbands wisdom and ability to 
lead their wives into his presence.” *° 


_Ann Eliza Young found to her great disappointment that Brig- 
ham Young did not humor his wives much. .She wrote that the 
chief topic of conversation with Brigham was economy in dress, 
and that “he practises the most rigid parsimony at home with his 
wives.” “Except by Amelia,” wrote Ann Eliza bitterly, “a re- 
quest for any article of wearing apparel is the signal for all sorts 
of grumbling.’’ Once Clara Decker, if we can believe Ann Eliza, 
turned on her husband: 


“Clara Decker, one of his numerous wives, was sadly in want of 
some furs, and she did not hesitate to ask Brother Young to supply 


10 Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, pp. 307-308. 


348 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


her needs. He became positively furious, and declared that her 
extravagance was beyond all endurance; she wanted to ruin him; 
she was determined to ruin him; all his wives were banded together 
for his financial downfall; and so on, with endless abuse. She 
listened to him patiently for a few minutes; then getting tired of all 
this abuse, she interrupted him :— 

““Tf you think, Brigham Young, that I care anything for you 
except for your money and what little 1 can get from you, you are 
mistaken. I might have cared more once; but that was a long time 
ago.’ 

eShe then turned and left the room, leaving him petrified with 

amazement. A few hours after a set of furs was sent to her room. 
She quietly took them, and the subject was never referred to 
again at 


Ann Eliza asked for a set of furs the winter after her marriage to 
Brigham Young, and she wrote that Brigham Young flew into a 
rage at the request, mortifying her so much that she wept. The 
next time he visited her, however, he brought with him a set of 
furs, and they did not have another quarrel until she wanted a 
piece of silk to line the muff of the set of furs. 

Whatever may have been his attitude at home, confronted with 
tears and the other practical aspects of the problem, Brigham 
Young’s attitude in the pulpit was a stern one. He once said: 
“. . 3 and when a wife says, ‘O, no, my dear, I think I under- 
stand this matter as well as you do, and perhaps a little better; I 
am conversant with all the whys and wherefores, and am ac- 
quainted with this little circumstance better than you are, and I 
think in this case, my dear, that I know better than you;’ reply, 
‘Get out of my path, for I am going yonder, and you may whistle 
at my coat-tail until you are tired of it.’ That is the way I would 
talk to my wives and children, if they intermeddled with my 
duties. And I say to them, If you cannot reverence me, tell me 
where the man is you can reverence, and I would speedily make a 
beeline with my carriage and servants and place you under his | 
Cares eth, 

Although he was firm in the belief that wives must not meddle in 
their husband’s business, he favored the right of a husband to in- 
terfere sometimes in the domestic affairs of the establishment. 
“Tf a man is a good husband,” Brigham Young once told the con- 


11 Wife No. 19, pp. 132-133. 
12 Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p. 45. 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES . 349 


gregation, “and knows how to live, let him teach his wife how to 
cook the food he provides, as I have some of my wives, more or 
less, notwithstanding I have some excellent cooks; but I do not 
think that I have one but what I can teach in the art of cooking 
some particular varieties of food, for I have at times been obliged 
to pay considerable attention to this matter. . . . The man then 
has to buy the bonnets, the linings, the dress patterns, &c., and also 
hire them made; and he has to buy aprons, shoes, and stockings, 
and even the garters that are worn on the stockings. There is 
not judgment, economy, and force enough in some women to 
knit their own garters. . . . Let me tell you one thing, husbands; 
determine this year that you will stop buying these things, and 
say to your wife, ‘Here is some wool; knit your own stockings, 
or you will not have any... .’** Brigham Young maintained, 
however, that a husband had no right to ransack his wives’ be- 
longings. He said once in the pulpit: ‘Wives, let your husband’s 
stores alone, if they have not committed them to your charge. 
Husbands, commit that to your wives that belongs to them, and 
never search their boxes without their consent. I can boast of 
this. I have lived in the marriage relation nearly thirty years, 
and I never was the man to open my wife’s chest, without her 
consent, except once, and that was to get out a likeness that I 
wanted on the instant, and she was not at home to get it for me. 
That was the first time I ever opened a trunk in my life that 
belonged to my wife, or to my child.” ** The relationship of hus- 
band and wives under polygamy was such a difficult one that the 
people needed these simple discourses of instruction from their 
leader. 

In Brigham Young’s own household his wives did all the cook- 
ing, washing, cleaning, and waiting on table. All of them sewed, 
knit, and made homespun clothes and even carpets, and their 
accomplishments were one of the boasts of the community. One 
of the wives taught all the children, until Brigham Young finally 
established a private school for his own progeny. He hired a 
stenographer to teach them shorthand reporting, and he prom- 
ised a black silk dress to the first of his daughters who learned to 
report one of his sermons. Sir Richard Burton described a con- 
versation he had with Brigham Young: “On one occasion when 
standing with him on the belvidere, my eye fell upon a new erec- 


13 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 313-319. 
14 Journal of Discourses, vol. I, p. 316. 


350 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


tion; it could be compared externally to nothing but an English 
gentleman’s hunting stables with their little clock tower, and | 
asked him what it was intended for. ‘A private school for my 
children,’ he replied, ‘directed by Brother E. B. Kelsey.’ ” 

The word polygamy suggests among other things the luxury, 
ease, and languor of the Arabian Nights, but polygamy in Utah, 
and especially in Brigham Young’s household, was quite another 
thing. Brigham Young had never been accustomed to luxury and 
had always been too busy for ease; he was constitutionally, and 
by habit, incapable of languor. His wives did not lie around in 
silks waiting for his embraces, for his conscience would not 
have permitted him to enjoy such a situation, and they were hardly 
formed for it; although some of them were quite beautiful in a 
striking rather than a wistful way, most of the wives were sharp>) 
featured women, and not very decorative or ornamental. ) They 
were provided with comfortable rooms and adequate food. ‘The 
entire establishment, although its quiet suggested a Moslem air 
of retirement to Sir Richard Burton, more closely resembled a 
New England household on a larger scale. Instead of one super- 
ficially forbidding lady in blacks or grays, there were nineteen of 
them. Most of Brigham Young’s wives lived together in two 
large houses, the Lion House and the Bee-Hive. ‘The emblem of 
the Lion House was a lion couchant, which had been formed for 
Brigham Young by a visiting sculptor. An anti-Mormon writer 
pointed out that this emblem was not appropriate for Brigham 
Young’s house, because the lion takes only one mate, and he sug- 
gested as a fitting substitute the figure of a bull, but he remarked, 
correctly, that this was a matter of taste. 

Ann Eliza Young had refused to join the rest of the wives in 
the Lion House and the Bee-Hive House, after she was married 
to Brigham Young. She described the cottage he furnished for 
her: 


“He had wanted me to go to the Lion House to live; but on that 
point I was decided. I would stay at my father’s house, but I would 
not go there; so he had made a home for me in the city. Such a 
home as it was! A little house, the rent of which would have been 
extremely moderate had it been a hired house, furnished plainly, 
even meanly, when the position of the man whose wife was to 
occupy it was considered. It was the very cheapest pine furniture 
which could be bought in the city, and the crockery was dishes that 
Brigham had left when he sold the Glove bakery. There were very 





USE 


Ho 


E- HIVE 


ND BE 


SEA 


+ 
) 


Lion Ho 





MELIA’S PALACE” 


A 


ce 





BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES © 351 


few of these, and they were in various stages of dilapidation. My 
carpet was an old one, taken from the Lion House parlor, all worn 
out in the center, and, it being a large room, I took the outer edges 
and pieced out enough to cover two rooms, and the other floors were 
bare. I had no window curtains of any sort, and there being no 
blinds to the house, I had to hang up sheets to keep people from 
looking in.” 1% 


Once a month Ann Eliza drew rations from Brigham Young’s 
steward’s stores: five pounds of sugar, a pound of candles, a bar 
of soap, and a box of matches. The daily necessities were drawn 
as they were needed. The bread all came from the President’s 
own bakery. Sometimes he issued a few yards of calico or 
bleached and unbleached muslin to each of his miniature army. 

Brigham Young saw all his wives together at dinner. He usu- 
ally rose in the morning at seven o’clock and went to his office 
before nine. The private room where he often slept adjoined his 
office. The barber came to his office at ten and shaved in the 
vicinity of his large brown beard or trimmed his hair while he 
continued to discuss church business with his associates. From 
ten until eleven he was accessible to Mormons who wished to see 
him for any reason. Dinner was served in the Lion House at 
two o’clock in the afternoon, and all the wives and children were 
usually present at this meal. This was the first meeting of the 
whole family during the day. Occasionally Brigham Young paid 
the wives individual visits in their rooms during the day. At 
night the entire family assembled again for prayers. At this func- 
tion in the parlor attendance was compulsory. Brigham Young 
once advised his congregation: “Get your wives and children to- 
gether, lock the door so that none of them will get out, and get 
down on your knees; and if you feel as though you want to swear 
and fight, keep on your knees until they are pretty well wearied, 
saying, ‘Here I am; I will not abuse my Creator nor my religion, 
though I feel like hell inside, but I will stay on my knees until 
I overcome these devils around me.’” Upon another occasion, 
when he was discussing prayers, he said: “Let me tell you how 
you should do. If you feel that you are tempted not to open 
your mouth to the Lord, and as though the heavens are brass over 
your heads, and the earth iron beneath your feet, and that every 
thing is closed up, and you feel that it would be a sin for you to 


15 Wife No. 19, p. 458. 


352 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


pray, then walk up to the devil and say, Mr. Devil, get out of my 
way; and if you feel that you cannot get down on your knees for 
fear you will swear, say, get down knees; and if they don’t feel 
right when they are down, put something under them, some sharp 
sticks, for instance, and say, knees come to it. ‘But I dare not 
open my mouth,’ says one, ‘for fear that I shall swear.’ Then 
say, open, mouth, and now tongue, begin.”” After prayers the 
family usually went to bed. The story went about Salt Lake City 
that one of Brigham Young’s wives erased the chalk mark on the 
door of another and enjoyed her husband’s company during the 
night when it rightfully belonged to her sister wife, but there is 
no other evidence that chalk marks existed. 

One of Brigham Young’s daughters, Susa Young Gates, wrote 
a description of the home life of the family. She said that when 
young men visited the thirty-one daughters, they were all received 
together in the parlor, with a brilliantly lighted lamp on a center - 
table. It was thus impossible to become affectionate without 
attracting the ridicule of sisters, and sisters are notoriously cruel. 
One night the lamp was turned low—no one knew exactly how it 
happened—and books were piled in front of it. Something— 
perhaps the silence—told Brigham Young that the parlor was not 
as usual, and he suddenly entered with a candle, went up to each 
couple, and shoved his candle near their faces, the better to see 
and to startle them. Without speaking he made the rounds, caus- 
ing by his impressive promenade fearful embarrassment. Then he 
silently walked up to the lamp, knocked over the barricade of 
books, and turned the light to its full brilliance. If the young 
men who visited his daughters did not leave the parlor at ten 
o'clock Brigham Young appeared with an armful of hats and 
asked each to identify his own.*® 

Brigham Young had very definite ideas concerning the care 
and feeding of children, which he tried to carry out in the labora- 
tory with which nature had provided him. He delivered a sermon 
one Sunday at Ogden, illustrating his own method of correcting 
very young children: 


“Tf you find that children are cruel, do not contend with them, 
soothe them, and invite those who through accident have injured a 
little sister to pity her. “You have accidentally hurt your little sister, 
go and kiss her.’ By taking this course you will have good children, 


16 North American Review, vol. 150. 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES = 353 


and they will not contend with each other. I am talking to you of 
that which I know. I have had an experience in these matters. 

“T will relate a little incident that occurred in my own family. 
A little boy about three and a half years old was very ill. His 
mother would feed him bread and milk, or whatever he wished. As 
soon as he could stand by her, every day he wanted his bread and 
milk. Just as soon as he had got what he wanted, he would throw 
up his hand, and away went the basin to the floor. His mother did 
not know what to do. Said I, ‘If you will do,just as I tell you, I 
will tell you what to do. The next time you sit down to feed this 
little boy, when he has got through he will knock the dish out of 
your hand.’ Said I, ‘Lean him against the chair, do not say one 
word to him, go to your work, pay no attention to him whatever.’ 
She did so. The little fellow stood there, looked at her, watched 
her; then he would look at the basin and spoon, watch his mother, 
and look at the basin and spoon again. By and by he got down and 
crept along the floor and climbed up to the chair, and then set the 
basin on the table, and crept until he got the spoon and put it on 
the table. He never tried to knock that dish out of her hand again. 
Now she might have whipped him and injured him, as a great many 
others would have done; but if they know what to do, they can cor- 
rect the child without violence.” +” 


Upon another occasion Brigham Young suggested to the women 
that they wash their children with warm water and soft flannel 
instead of hard cold water and rough cloth, “‘and,” he added, “‘in- 
stead of giving them pork for their breakfast, give them good 
wholesome bread and sweet milk, baked potatoes, and also butter- 
milk if they like it, and a little fruit, and I would have no objec- 
tions to their eating a little rice.’ He also urged fathers and 
mothers not to talk baby talk to their children, although he ad- 
mitted he did so himself, but was trying hard to break himself of 
the habit. “I differ,’ Brigham Young once said, “‘with Solomon’s 
recorded saying as to spoiling the child by sparing the rod. True 
it is written in the New Testament that ‘whom the Lord loveth 
he chasteneth.’ It is necessary to try the faith of children as well 
as of grown people, but there are ways of doing so besides taking 
a club and knocking them down with it.” There were no lame, 
deformed, or blind children among Brigham Young’s fifty-six. 

In public Brigham Young paid careful, almost methodical, 
attention to his wives. At the frequent balls held in the Social 
Hall he sat on a sofa, in later years, with Amelia on one side of 


17 Journal of Discourses, vol. 19, p. 70. 


354 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


him and Mother Young on the other. The rest of his wives 
grouped themselves about the trio to the best of their ability. 
During the period of Amelia’s ascendancy Brigham usually 
danced the first cotillion with her, and in the course of the evening 
he took care to dance at least once with all of his wives who might 
be present. His dancing was lively and active, and one of his 
former followers recorded that he took great pleasure in being 
absolutely correct and enjoyed thoroughly the “brakedown”’ step 
at the end. It was said that a Mormon invented a double cotil- 
lion, so that two ladies were attached to each gentleman, which 
was hailed as a great device of genius, for there were often three 
times the number of women in the ballroom as there were partners 
for them. Anti-Mormons invented many wild rumors of the 
attendant circumstances of the eminently respectable Mormon so- 
cial functions, but the prize for imagination should have been 
offered to a certain Mrs. M. J. Gildersleeve, of the International 
Council of Women, who stated confidently in one of her speeches 
on Mormons, “At their dances mney give wine to the young to 
rouse their passions.” 

It was ever a source of wonder to inquisitive Gentiles that 
Brigham Young and his associates could live in amity and peace 
with so many wives. Erastus Snow once explained in a sermon: 
“They cannot understand it, because they are governed by their 
passions, and not by principles; and it is the hardest thing in the 
world for them to be convinced that this people are governed by 
principle. This is the doctrine we have been preaching abroad, 
and it is the very thing the Gentiles will not receive; and they 
marvel and wonder that we do not tear each other’s eyes out. 
They say this would be the case with them: in a little while they 
would be bald and blind and full of wounds, bruises, and putri- 
fying sores; or, like the Kilkenny cats, use each other up all but 
the tails, and then the tails would jump at each other. So it would 
be among them indeed; for there is no law of the Lord that would 
keep the people together a minute in the peace and order that exist 
here.”” On the whole, it would seem, the Mormons were gov- 
erned by principles to such an extent, that their life was dull and 
hampered, but they had accustomed themselves so thoroughly to 
the bonds of principle rather than the license of passion that they 
did not feel their chains. Orson Pratt, their indefatigable phi- 
losopher, devised for the benefit of the community a set of rules 
for polygamists, which he published soon after polygamy was 


BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIVES — 355 


publicly proclaimed. Among them was this significant advice: 
“Rule 4th—Betray not the confidence of your wives. There are 
many ideas in an affectionate, confiding wife which she would 
wish to communicate to her husband, and yet she would be very 
unwilling to have them communicated to others. Keep each of 
your wives’ secrets from all the others, and from any one else, 
unless in cases where good will result by doing otherwise.” The 
other rules urged impartiality towards the various wives and their 
children, and advised a husband never to reprove one wife in the 
presence of the others. There were also rules for the wives 
against tattling and slander. Orson Pratt particularly asked 
them not to correct the faults of another wife’s children without 
express permission from the mother. 


Chapter LX 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 


THE existence of unusual sexual conditions in Utah was a con- 
venient outlet for the moral indignation of the rest of the coun- 
try. The same intense missionary spirit of a part of the United 
States population which leads this country to support so many 
enterprises among the non-Christian nations of the earth (soon 
discovered in Mormonism, and particularly in polygamy, an ideal 
beast to convert or to kill. The startling fact that this beast was 
-present within our own borders led those people who interested 
themselves in its actions to wish more passionately to kill it as 
soon as they began to lose hope of its conversion. “from the 
time of the prehistoric sex-worship of primitive peoples,” wrote 
Theodore Schroeder, the psychologist, “to this very hour, the 
desire to regulate other people’s sexual affairs has been the most 
zealously pursued of all the ambitions of religious societies.” 
Polygamy was known to the zealous clergymen and hostile 
editors of the eastern United States as that “peculiar institution,” 
and it was often referred to by that description instead of by its 
name. Whether this was from delicacy or malice, one does not 
know, but the newspapers and clergymen seemed to feel that they 
had accomplished an argument when they had established a nick- 
name. But they did not rest with nicknames. For thirty years 
clergymen, women’s societies, and editors kept up a steady bar- 
rage of propaganda against the horrors of Mormon polygamy, 
and the clergymen especially seemed to forget some of their 
Christianity in the heat of the battle, for there is no other way 
of explaining the statement one Sunday morning of the Rev. Mr. 
DeWitt Talmage to his fashionable congregation, “that polyg- 
amy will never be driven out of Utah except at the point of the 
bayonet.” Another Christian minister, the Rev. Dr. Crosby, of 
Chicago, remarked at the same time that “Mormonism ought to be 
dynamited.” The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, a popular preacher of 


New York, pointed out one Sunday in a sermon the dangers of 
356 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 357 


insidious Mormon propaganda: “Mormon literature is being cir- 
culated in our streets and distributed in our schools. J am 
credibly informed that a little boy of eight surprised his mother 
by coming home from one of our schools a while ago and saying 
to her: ‘Mother, when I get to be a man, I am going to have five 
wives. Teacher says I may.’” Dr. Parkhurst seemed to imply 
that Teacher was a Mormon spy, but he offered no evidence for 
his accusation; she may have been merely a pagan. 

Besides those Gentiles who had never visited Utah and ob- 
served the practical operation of a household with many wives 
and one husband, there were hundreds of anti-polygamists who 
did visit there, and who invariably returned filled with what 
they had set out to find. The extraordinary quality of the 
domestic arrangement entered into by a Mormon annoyed these 
people frightfully. Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President of the 
United States, wrote to his cousin Carrie from Salt Lake City: 
“We saw one house where a man, quite poor, had three wives 
and but two rooms in the house, one to cook and eat in, and the 
other with two beds in. You can imagine, without my enlarg- 
ing on it, what a man who has no wife at all thinks of such a 
system.’ There appeared to be an element of bachelor’s envy 
mixed with the Vice-Presidential indignation. For a moment his 
mind may have harbored the sad reflection of Sir Richard Burton, 
who was also a Gentile in Utah, and who, when he noted in his 
book the surrounding abundance and his own appetite, was moved 
to quote: 

“Water, water every where, 
And not a drop to drink!” 


Paper-covered fictions with frontispieces of semi-naked women 
being bathed in the Salt Lake City Endowment House by men 
with leering eyes came in a constant stream from the presses of 
the cheap publishing houses of the moral states. The writers and 
publishers, under the pretense of moral outrage, were enabled to 
print with impunity enticing pictures of Mormon life in all its 
delectable horror, and they found a ready market for their litera- 
ture throughout the country. | 
¥ With the exception of the indignant clergymen the women Ay 
_ were the most virulent on the subject of plural marriage. Sir 
~Richard Burton wrote that “when the fair sex enters upon the 
subject of polygamy, it apparently loses all self-control, not to say 


358 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


its senses.” It is noteworthy that the ranks of anti-polygamy had > 
few women who had been Mormons before they became lec- 
turers. The conspicuous exception is the case of Ann Eliza 
Young, who went throughout the country under the auspices of 
Major J. B. Pond. The anti-Mormon women writers and speak- 
ers felt that they were leaders in a great cause; they were “strik- 
ing the fetters of plurality off their suffering sisters.” And they 
were amazed and deeply hurt when the sisters denied the suffering 
and resented the word “fetters.”’ The Mormon women retorted 
sharply that women who busied themselves so much about polyg- 
amy were jealous because they did not have even portions of 
husbands themselves. The Mormon women felt that by the very 
practice of polygamy they were elevating American womanhood, 
and they hoped sincerely to convert those anti-polygamists who 
wished to raise them from degradation. Mormon wives also con- 
sidered themselves artists in marriage, and they thought of the 
Gentile women as uninitiated lay critics, whose opinions were 
only worthy of condescending pity. Apropos of this similarity 
of purpose on both sides, the English journalist, Phil Robinson, 
remarked: “When Stanley was in Central Africa, he was often 
amused and sometimes not a little disgusted to find that instead 
of jis discovering the Central Africans, the Central Africans 
insisted on discovering him. . . . Something very like this will 
be the fate of those who come to Utah thinking they will be 
received as shining lights from a better world. They will not 
find the women of Utah waiting with outstretched arms to grasp 
the hand that saves them. There will be no stampede of down- 
trodden females. On the contrary, the clarion of woman’s rights 
will be sounded, and the intruding ‘champions’ of that cause will 
find themselves attacked with their own weapons, and hoisted 
with their own petards.”’ 

Among the foremost of the women agitators against polygamy 
was Kate Field, the journalist, who was more capable than the 
others, but no less unreasonably bitter. She lectured and wrote on 
the subject of polygamy after an extensive tour of Utah, and she 
tried to enlist Mark Twain in the cause, for in Kate Field A 
Record by Lilian Whiting there is this letter to her from Samuel 
L. Clemens, publisher : 


“Your notion and mine about polygamy is without doubt exactly 
the same; but you probably think we have some cause of quarrel 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 359 


with those people for putting it into their religion, whereas I think 
the opposite. Considering our complacent cant about this country 
of ours being the home of liberty of conscience, it seems to me that 
the attitude of our Congress and people toward the Mormon Church 
is matter for limitless laughter and derision. ‘The Mormon religion 
is a religion: the negative vote of all the rest of the globe could not 
break down that fact; and so I shall probably always go on thinking 
that the attitude of our Congress and nation toward it is merely good 
trivial stuff to make fun of. 

“Am I a friend to the Mormon religion? No. I would like to 
see it extirpated, but always by fair means, not these Congressional 
rascalities. If you can destroy it with a book,—by arguments and 
facts, not brute force,—you will do a good and wholesome work. 
And I should be very far from unwilling to publish such a book in 
case my business decks were clear. They are not clear now, how- 
ever, and it is hard to tell when they will be... . 

“Hartford, March.8, 1886. 

| “SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.” 


It was not long before the constant hammering at its doors of 
women, clergymen, editors, and religious associations produced 
a semblance of action from Congress. First a bill was passed > 
making marriage with more than one woman in the territories of 


‘ the United States a crime punishable by imprisonment and a fine. _/ 


But this was successfully evaded by the Mormons, who claimed” 


that they did not legally marry their wives according to the United 
\ States law, and were therefore the husbands of no more than one 


‘woman each. The Mormons also maintained that Congress had 


no constitutional right to legislate on marriage, even in the terri- 
tories over which it had almost supreme jurisdiction. When 
Senator Lyman Trumbull said to Brigham Young, “I have no 
doubt that Congress has a right to legislate upon the subject of 
the marriage relation, and to regulate it,” Brigham Young asked: 
“Then why not legislate about the intercourse of the sexes?” 
Once in a sermon Brigham Young asked rhetorically: “Why 
does not our government make a law to say how many children 
a man shall have? They might as well do so as to make a law 
to say how many wives a man shall have.” 

Those same people who were insisting upon the right of popular 
sovereignty as a principle in the matter of slavery, found it ex- 
ceedingly repugnant when applied to polygamy. The United 
States Supreme Court finally settled the practical aspects of the 
question by its decision against George Reynolds, Brigham 


360 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Young’s secretary, whose case was brought up as a test case. “In 
our opinion,” said the Court, “the statute immediately under cou- 
sideration is within the legislative power of Congress. . . . Laws | 
are made for the government of actions, and, while they cannot 
interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with 
practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a 
necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously con- 
tended that the civil government under which he lived could not 
interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or, if a wife religiously believed 
it was her duty to burn herself on the funeral pile of her dead 
husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to 
prevent her carrying her belief into practice?’ By this decision 
the Mormons were told, in effect, that they might preach what 
they pleased, but that they must be very careful what they prac- 
tised. They would have maintained that logically, on the prin- 
ciples of individual liberty, wives had as much right to burn 
themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands as men once 
_had to buy a glass of beer. 
‘The Civil War intervened to save the Mormons from imme- 
\. diate action on the question of their right to polygamy. Brigham 
“Young steadfastly maintained that they would never abandon 
that right. He once asked in a sermon: “How will they get rid 
Of this awful evil in Utah? They will have to expend about 
three hundred millions of dollars for building a prison, for we 
must all go into prison. And after they have expended that 
amount for a prison, and roofed it over from the summit of the 
Rocky Mountains to the summit of the Sierra Nevada, we will 
dig out and go preaching through the world. (Voice on the 
stand: ‘What will become of the women, will they go to prison 
with us?’) Brother Heber seems concerned about the women’s 
going with us; they will be with us, for we shall be here together. 
This is a little amusing.” * 

In the spring of 1862 a company of volunteers from California 
under General Connor encamped in Salt Lake City. Their guns 
were trained on Brigham Young’s residence, and it was rumored 
that they intended to seize Brigham Young and to take him to 
Washington for trial under the law which prohibited marriage 
with more than one woman. The Mormons became nervous and 
guarded the house of their President carefully. At the sounding 
of a signal all the male citizens of Salt Lake City could be sum- 

1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 39. 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 361 


moned in a few minutes to his residence. But the purpose of 
this expedition was not to capture Brigham Young, but to keep 
him loyal to the Washington government during the Civil War, 
although he had from the first showed no signs of disloyalty, 
but had pledged his support to President, Lincoln. Brigham 
Young had recently been married again, and in order to prevent 
conviction under the new anti-bigamy law of 1862, he had him- 
self arrested and brought before a friendly federal judge. The 
witnesses were all Brigham Young’s clerks or friends, and the 
case was dismissed on the grounds that there was no evidence of 
his recent marriage, although the whole town knew about it. 
When Senator Trumbull visited Salt Lake City in 1869, he asked 
Brigham Young: “Mr. Young, may I say to the President that 
you intend to observe the laws under the constitution?” ‘“Well— 
yes—we intend to,” Brigham Young answered. “But may I say 
to him that you will do so?” insisted Senator Trumbull. ‘Yes, 
yes; so far as the laws are just, certainly,’ was Brigham Young’s 
noncommittal answer. 

But the President, who was then Ulysses S. Grant, was deter- 
mined that something more than that promise was needed, and 
especially did he feel that more laws might be effective. In his 
third annual message to Congress, sent on December 5, 1871, . 
Grant suggested that polygamy must be abolished, and in his suc- 
ceeding messages he kept urging Congress to do something about 
making it a crime, but Congress never seemed to be able to make 
up its political mind on the subject. It seemed to Grant that it 
was preposterous that polygamy should exist in a Christian na- 
tion, though why it was preposterous, he never said. He con- 
tented himself with branding it in his annual messages as “‘licensed 
immorality,” and coupling it with the importation of Chinese 
women for immoral purposes, which seemed to be a flourishing 
trade on the Pacific Coast at the time. General Grant’s appointee 
as territorial governor of Utah, J. Wilson Shaffer, consulted an 
apostate Mormon on the expediency of attacking polygamy. 
This man, who was no longer associated with the Mormon 
Church, is reported to have answered: “I married my wives in 
good faith. We have lived together for years, believing it was 
the will of God. The same is true of the Mormon people gen- 
erally. Before I will abandon my wives as concubines, and cast 
off my children as bastards, I will fight the United States Gov- 
ernment down to my boots. What would you do, Governor, in 


362 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the like case?’ And the Governor is reported to have answered 
with feeling, “By God, I would do the same!’ | 

This aspect of the problem presented a dilemma to both Mor- 
mons and anti-polygamists. Concubine was a term a good Chris- 
tian only accepted without a blush in eastern romances, and 
bastard was a popular oath for the expression of the utmost 
contempt. The United States Government and anti-polygamous 
orators asked pious Mormons to make their wives the one, and 
their children the latter. President Grant had this phase of the 
problem presented to his attention, for in his message to Congress 
he urged that something be done about the “innocent children” 
who were the by-products of polygamy, and he suggested, without 
definitely recommending it, that Congress pass an act authorizing 
the territorial legislature of Utah to legitimize all children born 
prior to a fixed date. 

Meanwhile, the people of Utah were making desperate efforts 
to turn their territory into a state. Its population was large 
enough, and the Mormons knew that once they had a state gov- 
ernment, they could pass whatever marriage laws they pleased for 
their own government. The anti-polygamists also realized this, 
and in spite of all its petitions and its population, Utah was con- 
tinued as a territory. The threat was held over the Mormons that 
unless they promised to be good men and abandon their wives, 
they never would be admitted into the Union as a sovereign state. 
Thomas Fitch, a senator-elect, called upon President Grant to 
talk about the affairs of the Mormon community, and fortunately 
the interview was reported by the Washington correspondent of 
the Cincinnati Commercial. Colonel Fitch found President Grant 
enjoying a cigar: 


““Mr. President,’ said Colonel Fitch, ‘I want to try and convince 
you of the advisability of admitting Utah into the sisterhood of 
States.’ 

““T am unalterably opposed to the admission of Utah,’ answered 
the President. 

“*Yes, but you have been prejudiced against the people out there 
by unfair advisers,’ said Fitch. 

ey. am unalterably opposed to the admission of Utah,’ was the 
reply. 

“But our population is sufficient; we have made a fair constitu- 
tion, and it would be a great relief to the people out there to get into 
the Union,’ 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 363 


““T am unalterably opposed to the admission of Utah,’ again re- 
plied the firm man. 

“ “Under any terms?’ 

“*Yes, under any terms. At least they should not come in until 
they learn how to behave themselves.’ 

““Tf you refer to polygamy, they will no doubt surrender that 
for the sake of admission and peace, although it is one of the doc- 
trines of their church.’ 

“And murder is one of the doctrines of the church, ain’t it?’ 

““No, indeed, there are less murders committed there than in any 
of the surrounding Territories. As I said before, you have been 
very much misinformed about the true condition of affairs. You 
surely don’t believe everything you hear against the Mormons ?” 

“Where there is so much smoke there must be fire,’ answered 
the President. 

““<Suppose we should say the same about all the lies told about 
you.’ 

“Silence and smoke. 

““By admitting us the troubles out there would be at an end.’ 

“Silence and smoke. 

“Tt is of the highest importance to the welfare of her people 
and the development of the rich resources of the Territory that Utah 
be admitted.’ 

“Silence and smoke. 

““Ts your mind, Mr. President, so firmly made up, that whatever 
arguments might be addressed to you would be useless ?’ 

‘““‘T am unalterably opposed to the admission of Utah,’ replied our 
firm President, and the charming interview ended.” ? 


_ Brigham Young once told his congregation: “Do you think that 
we shall ever be admitted as a State into the Union without deny- 
ing the principle of polygamy? If we are not admitted until then, 
we shall never be admitted. These things will be just as the Lord 
will.”’ But even in Brigham Young’s lifetime there was a tend- 
ency to compromise for the benefit of statehood. In the School 
of the Prophets, which was established by Brigham Young in 
Salt Lake City for the education of himself and his associates, 
Daniel Wells spoke on December 9, 1871. He was reported as 
follows: “‘President Wells talked on polygamy—would not think 
it strange if God would take that principle back to himself for a 
season, through the wickedness of his people.’ But God did not 
take action while Brigham Young was still alive. 


2 Americana, vol. 9, p. 1039, footnote 21. 


364 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


A few years after the death of Brigham Young, the Edmunds 
Act was passed by Congress. Previously Congress had passed 
another law, depriving those Mormons who had more than one 
wife of the right to vote. The Mormons accepted this depriva- 
tion and went on living with more than one wife instead of 
voting. In 1869 another futile attempt to break down polygamy 
was made. Some one in Congress had the idea, which was con- 
sidered brilliant, of abolishing polygamy by granting the vote to 
the women of Utah, and a bill was presented giving the vote to 
women in all the territories, for general legislation could not be 
passed for Utah alone. It was assumed, of course, that the women 
of Utah would rise up, and by the use of their ballots would 
destroy their most sacred institution. To this end, the bill was 
called, “A Bill to Discourage Polygamy in Utah.” But Congress- 
men were surprised when William H. Hooper, the Mormon dele- 
gate to Congress from Utah, spoke in favor of the bill, and they 
were amazed when the official Church newspaper, the Deseret 
News, printed editorials approving the measure strenuously. The 
bill never came:to a vote in either house of Congress. The follow- 
ing year the territorial legislature of Utah granted the vote to 
women in the territory, and they promptly voted as their husbands 
did, thus forming a powerful political advantage to the saan oie 
Church in Utah. 

The Edmunds Act of 1882 provided that any person in the 
territories of the United States who had a wife and married 
another should be fined not more than $500 and imprisoned for 
not more than five years. It also provided that any male person in 
the territories who cohabited with more than one woman was 
guilty of a misdemeanor and was thereby subject to a fine of $300 
or six months’ imprisonment, or both. This act also legitimated 
those marriages performed before January 1, 1883, and deprived 
any polygamist of the right to vote or to hold office under the 
United States Government. An amendment passed five years 
later provided that a husband or a wife might testify against each 
other concerning polygamy, and it also abolished female suffrage 
in the territories. Any man who could not swear that he was 
obeying the laws of the United States, and particularly the Ed- 
munds Act, was deprived of the right to serve on any jury, and 
the United States Government was granted the right to escheat 
the property of any corporation whose members were violating 
the first anti-bigamy law of 1862. In addition it was provided 






oe 





ae YG 


= ae 


:> : ATR a 


= SS ee eee ce 














Tue MorMon ProBLEM SOLVED 


BricHAM—“I must submit to your laws—but what shall I do with all 


these ?” 
U. S. Grant—“Do as I do—give them offices.” 


From a contemporary cartoon 


366 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


that immigration for the purpose of adding to the polygamous 
population of Utah should be prohibited, and the Perpetual Emi- 
gration Fund of the Mormon Church was declared dissolved as 
a corporation. The corporation known as the Church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter-day Saints was also dissolved. 

The United States Government began to enforce this act 
vigorously. One of the first results of the Edmunds Act came 
after the election of Brigham H. Roberts as delegate to Congress 
from Utah. Shortly before Mr. Roberts was to take his seat in 
Congress one of his wives bore him twins. This was an un- 
fortunate coincidence, for it accentuated the fact that he practised 
polygamy. The Salt Lake Tribune, an anti-Mormon newspaper, 
printed a cartoon of the Roberts twins holding hands, Shafi 
and chanting : 


“Oh, ho, there goes pa 
Down to Washington, 
But he won’t take ma.” 


Congress denied Mr. Roberts the right to hold a seat, and when 
he returned to Utah, the Tribune printed the twins again, and 
again they were holding hands and dancing. This time they 
chanted: 


“Oh, ho, here comes pa 
Back from Washington, 
Too much ma!” 


The Church determined to fight the Edmunds Act, and in an 
epistle the First Presidency, which was no longer headed by 
Brigham Young, for he had died five years before the Edmunds 
Act was passed, declared : 


“We did not reveal celestial marriage. We cannot withdraw or 
renounce it. God revealed it, and he has promised to maintain it 
and to bless those who obey it. Whatever fate, then, may threaten 
us, there is but one course for men of God to take; that is, to keep 
inviolate the holy covenants they have made in the presence of God 
and angels. For the remainder, whether it be life or death, freedom 
or imprisonment, prosperity or adversity, we must trust in God. 
We may say, however, if any man or woman expects to enter into 
the celestial kingdom of our God without making sacrifices and 
without being tested to the very uttermost, they have not understood 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 367 


the Gospel. . . . Who would suppose that any man, in this land of 
religious liberty, would presume to say to his fellow-man that he 
had no right to take such steps as he thought necessary to escape 
damnation? Or that Congress would enact a law which would 
present the alternative to religious believers of being consigned to a 
penitentiary if they should attempt to obey a law of God which 
would deliver them from damnation?” 


This statement was issued on October 5, 1885. During the \ 
/ next five years 1,100 Mormons were put in jail, and all the | 
_ leaders of the Church were either in jail or fugitives from jus-/ 
tice. The United States had determined to extirpate polygamy. 
/ All the Mormon Church property was confiscated by the United 
' States Government except those buildings used for religious pur- 
\ poses. Immigration of converts was stopped. The Supreme 
‘Court of the United States had meanwhile declared the Edmunds 
Act constitutional, and its provisions were being carried. out to the 
letter. The Mormons once more found themselves in grave dif- 
ficulties. Wilford Woodruff, who was then the President of the 
Church, issued a proclamation in which he declared that while 
polygamy was divine, it was inexpedient. This was not con- 
sidered satisfactory by the federal authorities, and on September 
25, 1890, Wilford Woodruff issued a manifesto to the Saints 
which read: 


“To Whom It May Concern. 

“Tnasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress, which laws 
have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I 
hereby declare my intention to submit to these laws, and to use my 
influence with the members of the church over which I preside to 
have them do likewise. 

“There is nothing in my teachings to the church, or in those of 
my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably 
construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy, and when any elder 
of the church has used language which appeared to convey any 
such teachings he has been promptly reproved. 

“And now I publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-Day 
Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the 
law of the land.” 


This proclamation was ratified unanimously by the next gen- 
eral conference of the Church at Salt Lake City, on October 6, 
1890. But it was somewhat difficult, in view of the Church’s 


368 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


previously defiant attitude, to explain the part God had played in 
this latest pronouncement. President Woodruff told his flock: 
“Tt is not wisdom for us to make war upon 65,000,000 people. 
The prophet organized the church; and all that he has promised 
in this code of revelations has been fulfilled as fast as time would 
permit. That which is not fulfilled will be.” President Wood- 
ruff also said that both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had 
visited him in dreams, and that he was given to understand by 
them that this sudden about-face on the subject of polygamy was 
approved by them, and by God. But it was still somewhat dif- 
ficult to make many of the obstinately faithful believe that it was 
necessary to abandon a divine institution because the United 
States Government, which they had always had reason to believe 
more infernal than divine, insisted upon it. Woodruff said in 
answer to this strong argument that he was an old man, that he 
was soon to face not only his maker, but also Joseph Smith, his 
prophet, Brigham Young, his adored leader, and John Taylor, his 
immediate predecessor as President, and that he would not will- 
ingly do anything rash with the certain knowledge that he must 
soon answer for his action before that formidable quartet. He 
said that he knew it to be the will of God that the persecuted 
Mormons should yield, and he quoted to them the revelation of 
Joseph Smith which said that God would excuse them from carry- 
ing out anything which their enemies hindered them from carrying 
out. They had tried their best, said President Woodruff, to do 
their duty by marrying as many wives as possible for as many 
years as possible, but the wicked United States Government and 
its Gentiles opposed them furiously, and God would forgive the 
Mormons the lapse of their duty, whatever He might do to the 
wicked Gentiles. But there were still annoying skeptics who 
wanted to know why, if this were the case, it had been necessary 
for more than a thousand Mormons to go to jail for practising 
polygamy before it was abandoned. The answer was: ‘“We have 
waited for the Lord to move in the matter.” 

The Woodruff Manifesto officially ended polygamy, and in a 
few years Utah was officially received as a state of the United 
States. Phil Robinson wrote concerning this attempt to force 
Mormons out of polygamy: “In the same way the monogamist 
reformers, having twice failed to persuade the wives of Utah to 
abandon their husbands by giving them facilities for doing so, 
are now going to take their husbands from them by the force of 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 369 


the law . . . and, like the old Inquisitors who burnt their victims 
to save them from heresy, they are going to make women 
wretched in order to make them happy.” But it was one thing to 
pass laws and issue manifestoes forbidding the practice of poly- 
gamy, and it was quite another to prevent men from living with 
their wives. The federal government, at the instance of women 
anti-polygamists, established a huge home, of the proportions and 
aspect of an army barracks, for the wives of Mormons, whom 
they expected the Edmunds Act to deprive of homes. But no 
wife of a Mormon ever entered this bleak institution, for their 
former husbands continued to support them, and also quietly to 
live with them. 

The Church was placed in a peculiar theoretical position and 
also in an embarrassing practical position by the Woodruff Mani- 
festo. It was impossible to deny the divinity of plural marriage ° 

af without also denying the divine authenticity of Joseph Smith. But 
“the United States Government had said angrily that polygamy, far 
from being divine, was vulgar, and that government passed laws 
making it a serious crime, The only possible position for Saints, 
therefore, was to cling tenaciously to the divinity of their princi- 
ple, and at the same time to disclaim vehemently that they ever 
practised any longer what they had preached for so many years, 
And they were forced thereby to acknowledge, reluctantly, that 
Congress was mightier than God. 

“= The President of the Church and all his followers, however, 
did not consider that a Congressional decree was retroactive, and 
their wives therefore continued to enjoy their society and to 
clothe with earthly tabernacles the souls who were wandering about 
the celestial kingdom anxiously awaiting their turns to become 
children of this disheartening world. Joseph F. Smith, who suc-: 
ceeded Wilford Woodruff as President of the Church, explained 
his position to the Smoot Investigating Committee with great 
feeling: 


“Mr. Smitu: *... But I was placed in this position. I had a. 
plural family, if you please; that is, my first wife was married to 
me over thirty-eight years ago, my last wife was married to me 
over twenty years ago, and with these wives I had children, and I 
simply took my chances, preferring to meet the consequences of the 
law rather than to abandon my children and their mothers; and I 
have cohabited with my wives—not openly, that is, not in a manner 
that I thought would be offensive to my neighbors—but I have ac- 


370 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


knowledged them; I have visited them. They have borne me chil- 
dren since 1890, and I have done it, knowing the responsibility and 
knowing that I was amenable to the law.’ 

«Since the admission of the State there has been a sentiment 
existing and prevalent in Utah that these old marriages would be 
in a measure condoned. They were not looked upon as offensive, 
as really violative of law; they were, in other words, regarded as 
an existing fact, and if they saw any wrong in it, they simply 
winked at it. In other words, Mr. Chairman, the people of Utah, 
as a rule, as well as the people of this nation, are broad-minded and 
liberal-minded people, and they have rather condoned than other- 
wise, I presume, my offense against the law. I have never been 
disturbed. Nobody has ever called me in question that I know of, 
and if I had, I was there to answer to the charges or any charge 
that might have been made against me, and I would have been will- 
ing to submit to the penalty of the law, whatever it might have been.’ 

“Mr. TAYLER (cross-examining counsel): ‘So that obedience to 
the law is perfectly satisfied, according to your view of it, if one is 
ready to pay the penalty for its violation ?’ 

“Mr. SmitH: ‘Not at all. I should like to draw a distinction 
between unlawful cohabitation and polygamy. There is a law pro- 
hibiting polygamy, plural marriages. . . . That law, gentlemen, has 
been complied with by the church; that law has been kept by the 
church; and there never has been a plural marriage by the consent 
or sanction or knowledge or approval of the church since the mani- 
festo. 

“The law of unlawful cohabitation is another law entirely, and 
relates to the cohabitation of a man with more than one wife. That 
is the law which I have presumed to face in preference to disgracing 
myself and degrading my family by turning them off and ceasing 
to acknowledge them and to administer to their wants—not the law 
in relation to plural marriage. That I have not broken. Neither 
has any man broken it by the sanction or approval of the church.’ 

“Mr. TAYLER: ‘You say that there is a State law forbidding un- 
lawful cohabitation ?’ 

“Mr. SmitH: ‘That is my understanding.’ 

“Mr. Tayter: ‘And ever since that law was passed you have 
been violating it?’ 

“Mr. SmiruH: ‘I think likely I have been practicing the same thing 
even before that law was passed.’ 

“Mr. TAycer: ‘Yes.’ 

“Mr. Smitu: ‘Long years before the law was passed.’ 

“Mr. TAYLeR: ‘You have not in any respect changed your rela- 
tions to these wives since the manifesto or since the passage of this 
law of the State of Utah. I am not meaning to be unfair in the 


POLYGAMY AND THE LAW 371 


question, but only to understand you. What I mean is, you have 
been holding your several wives out as wives, not offensively, as you 
say. You have furnished them homes. You have given them your 
society. You have taken care of the children they bore you, and 
you have caused them to bear you new children—all of them.’ 

“Mr. SmituH: ‘That is correct, sir.’ 

“Mr. TAyer: ‘That is correct?’ 

“Mr. SMITH: ‘Yes, sir.’ 

“Mr. Tayer: ‘Now, since that was a violation of the law, why 
have you done it?’ 

“Mr. SmiTH: ‘For the reason I have stated. I preferred to face 
the penalties of the law to abandoning my family.’ 

“Mr. Taycer: ‘Do you consider it an abandonment of your family 
to maintain relations with your wives except that of occupying their 
beds ?’ 

“Mr. SmitH: ‘I do not wish to be impertinent, but I should like 
the gentleman to ask any woman, who is a wife, that question.’ 

“Mr. Taycer: ‘Unfortunately, or fortunately, that is not the status 
of this examination at this point.’ 

“Mr. SmitH: “All the same; it is my sentiment.’ ” 


Here Senator Foraker intervened with the objection that, “What 
we want are facts,’ Then the attorney for the prosecution, Mr. 
Tayler, proceeded to extract facts, and President Smith admitted 
frankly that his wives had borne eleven children since the mani- 
festo prohibiting polygamy, and that each of his five wives had 
given birth to at least one of these children. Senator Burrows, 
the.Chairman, then asked: 


“THE CHAIRMAN: ‘I wish to ask a question right here. You speak 
of your unwillingness to abandon your children.’ 

“Mr. SMITH: ‘Yes, sir.’ 

“THE CHAIRMAN: ‘Why is it necessary, in order to support your 
children, educate, and clothe them, that you should continue to have 
children by a multiplicity of wives?’ 

“Mr. SmiruH: “Because my wives are like everybody else’s wife.’ 

“THE CHAIRMAN: ‘I am not speaking of them.’ 

“Mr. SmituH: ‘I understand.’ 

“THE CHAIRMAN: ‘I am speaking of the children now in existence 
born to you.’ 

“Mr. SmitH: ‘Yes.’ 

“THE CHAIRMAN: ‘Why is it necessary to continue to have issue 
by five wives in order to support and educate the children already 
in existence? Why is it necessary? 


372 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“Mr. Smitu: ‘It is only to the peace and harmony and good will 
of myself and my wives; that is all.’ . 

“THE CHAIRMAN: “Then you could educate your children and 
clothe them and feed them without having new issue?’ 

“Mr. SmitrH: “Well, yes; I possibly could, but that is just exactly 
the kernel in the nut.’ 

“THE CHAIRMAN: ‘Yes.’ 

“Mr. Smitu: ‘I have chosen not to do that, Mr. Chairman.’ ” ® 


It is rumored to-day that polygamy is still practised among 
the Mormons, and that men still live with more than one wife; 
it would be unnatural if there were not some sporadic cases of 
the latter, for the habits of a lifetime are difficult to throw off, 
and those few who are old enough to have had many wives 
before it was against the law to have them, are likely to visit 
them occasionally. Brigham Young’s son, Brigham Young, Jr., 
was interviewed at Los Angeles on October 31, 1900. He 
recorded in his diary: “Reporter . . . sought to gain some in- 
formation about me & my companion: Polygamy came in for a 
share of attention. She was horrified to think that I still treated 
my three wives as usual.’ * But, on the whole, polygamy has dis- 
appeared, for economic reasons as well as because of legal enact-) 
_ ments. The young men find it difficult to support huge families, 

“now that Utah is no longer an exclusively agricultural community. 
As soon as the pioneers began to die the force within the Mormon 
Church against polygamy became stronger, for the pioneers were 
neither self-conscious nor sentimental. Their descendants went to 
colleges in the East, or associated more with Gentiles as more 
Gentiles came to Utah, and the result was that they became a bit 
ashamed of, their grandmothers, and especially of the fact that 
they had so many of them. It came to be considered bad form 
among young Mormons to have more than one wife. Brigham 
Young was never disconcerted by the grins which polygamy in- 
variably brought forth from those monogamists who were not 
self-righteous enough to groan at it, but the smiles of the 
Gentiles were too much for those who came after Brigham 
Young, and they have been as anxious to live like all other good 
Americans as their fathers were complacent in their differences. 


8 Proceedings of Reed Smoot Investigation, vol. 1, pp. 120-1313; p. 334. 
4 Manuscript Diary of Brigham Young, Jr., p. 10. In the Manuscript Collec- 
tion of the New York Public Library. ; 


‘POLYGAMY AND THE LAW _ 373 


Brigham Young’s son wrote in his diary on Monday, September 
30, 1901: “Met with some of my sons on street. Had’lunch with 
them. They are good boys but don’t work at religion much, I 
pray they may mend their ways.” ° 

Even during Brigham Young’s lifetime it was sometimes dif 
ficult to persuade young men to marry extensively. Heber Kim- 
ball once said in the pulpit: “I wish more of our young men 
would take to themselves wives of the daughters of Zion, and not 
wait for us old men to take them all; go ahead upon the right 
principle, young gentlemen, and God bless you for ever and ever, 
and make you fruitful, that we may fill the mountains and then 
the earth with righteous inhabitants.” Brigham Young once 
addressed the girls directly in a sermon, and he advised them to 
invite the men to marry them: “Tell the young men,” he said, 
“that you will sustain yourselves, and teach them how to sustain 
themselves if they do not know how, if they will only come and 
marry you. Now, girls, court up the boys, it is leap year. Give 
them to understand in some way that it is all right. . . . Tell the 
boys what to do, and you sisters of experience, ye mothers in 
Israel, go to and get up your societies, and teach these girls what 
to do, and how to get the boys to come and marry them. The 
neglect and lazy habits which our boys are falling into are a 
disgrace to us, to say nothing about the sin of such conduct. They 
produce nothing, and consider themselves unable to take care of © 
a family, and they will not marry.’ 

From a somewhat different point of view Artemus Ward 
imagined leap year among the Mormons: 


“T regret to say that efforts were made to make a Mormon of me 
while I was in Utah. 

“Tt was leap-year when I was there—and seventeen young widows 
—the wives of a deceased Mormon—offered me their hearts and 
hands. I called on them one day—and taking their soft white hands 
in mine—which made eighteen hands ecea haben found them in 
tears. 

“And I said—Why is this thus? What is the reason of this 
thusness ?” 

““CQh—soon thou wilt be gonested away!’ 

“T told them that when I got ready to leave a place I wentested. 

“They said—‘Doth not like us?’ 


5 Manuscript Diary of Brigham Young, Jr., p. 153. 
6 Journal of Discourses, vol. 12, pp. 203-204. Delivered April 8, 1868. 


374 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“T said—T doth—I doth!’ 

“T also said—‘I hope your intentions are honorable—as I am a 
lone child—my parents being far—far away.’ 

“They then said—‘Wilt not marry us?’ 

“T said—‘Oh—no—it cannot was.’ 

“Again they asked me to marry them—and again I declined. 
When they cried— 

“‘Qh—cruel man! This is too much—oh! too much!’ 

“T told them that it was on account of the muchness that I 
declined.” 


Chapter X 


SHAM BATTLE 


I 


THERE were other causes of dissension between the Mormons 
_ and the rest of the population of the United States besides polyg- 
amy, and these led first to conflicts by individuals, and finally to 
battle between the Mormons and the government. Polygamy 
caught the attention of the country and focused it upon Utah, 
and once in focus through those glasses non-Mormons saw much 
there to irritate them. “Among the fastnesses of the Rocky 
Mountains,’ wrote a writer for the benefit of the readers of the 
Atlantic Monthly, “there is a community which blends the 
voluptuousness of Bagdad with the economy of Cape Cod. ... 
In the Endowment House at Salt Lake City, secret rites are prac- 
tised of a character similar to the mysteries of the Nile, and pre- 
sided over by Young and Kimball, two Vermont Yankees, with 
. all the solemnity of priests of Isis and Osiris.” Whatever else 
they might be, a people who could be described in such terms were 
interesting to newspaper readers. Brigham Young wrote to his 
associate, George Q. Cannon, who was then in charge of the mis- 
sionary work in England: “The only thing interesting, however, 
that comes from Utah, is awful disclosures about polygamy, and 
a general hostility to the Government. I do not know that the 
world will ever tire upon these interesting subjects, they seem so 
pleased with them that they continually serve them up, dish after 
dish, course after course, and like the Indian at the feast, who 
had taken sucketash every time, when asked the fifth, and last 
time, what he would have, replied that he would take a little more 
sucketash. So with the world, they have great delight in false 
and calumnious statements made about ‘Mormons,’ and polygamy 
appears to form their chief attraction.”’ 

The same causes which had operated against the Mormons in 
Missouri and Illinois once more became effective soon after they 
were settled comfortably in ee As soon as their isolation was 

37 


376 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


broken by the flow of emigration westward, Salt Lake City was © 
visited by Gentiles, some of whom remained there, while others | 
wrote home about the Mormons to their favorite newspapers. 
“The chief cause of complaints, besides polygamy, was that the \ 
Mormons were ruled autocratically and acted politically as av 
group. They had formed a theocracy in a country which had 

always boasted of its democracy, and especially of its complete 
freedom from religious domination. By their power over their 
own courts the Mormons controlled justice, and men who did not 
agree faithfully with Brigham Young came to feel a desperate 
sense of grievance, which was justified by their situation. A 
Mormon juror would not convict a Mormon, if it could be 
avoided, when a Gentile or an apostate was the plaintiff, and the 
chances of conviction were abnormally great when the Gentile or 
an apostate was the defendant. The essence of the Mormon 
ecclesiastical polity was that the brethren were naturally opposed 
to the rest of the world, for the rest of the world had been 
opposed to the brethren for so long. A man who felt that he was 
right would experience an impotent frenzy in the face of such a 
force of unanimity and prejudice. There were only two ways 
out: an appeal to the federal government and violence. In their 
appeals to the federal government some of the Gentiles threatened 
violence, which they were too powerless to carry out without the 
aid of the federal government. 

Vague rumors also reached the East that Brigham Young and 
his Mormons were guilty of personal deeds of murder and crime. 
“According to their version,” Brigham Young once said, “I am 
guilty of the death of every man, woman, and child that has died 
between the Missouri river and the California gold mines; and 
they are coming here to chastise me. The idea makes me laugh; 
and when do you think they will get achance? Catching is always 
before hanging.” 

Another cry against the Mormons was that at heart they were 
disloyal to the United States Government. In their expression of 
contempt the Mormons were frequently outspoken; they dwelt 
feelingly on the wrongs which several state governments had sub- 
jected them to, and which the federal government had permitted 
to be executed without interference. But the Mormons were quite 
willing to be loyal so long as they were unmolested, and they were 
sincerely grateful to those Presidents and politicians who helped 
them or showed any confidence in their honesty of purpose. 


SHAM BATTLE 377 


The relation of the Mormon territory of Utah to the federal 
government and the various states was likened by Brigham Young 
to that of Joseph and his brethren and their father Jacob: 


“They,” said Brigham Young, referring to Joseph’s brethren, “per- 
secuted him, and lied to their father about him, and tried to alienate 
the feelings of the old man from him, and succeeded in a measure 
in estranging the feelings of the father from the young child. So it 
is with the General Government and us. We have plead time and 
time again, and we will plead, saying, ‘Spare us, love us; we mean 
to be one of the best boys you have got; be kind to us, and if you 
chasten us, it may be said that we have kissed the rod and rever- 
enced the hand that gave it, and tried again: but be merciful to us, 
for do you not see that we are a dutiful child?’ But no, Tom, Bill, 
Dick, Harry, and the rest of the boys are eternally running to the 
old man with lies in their mouths, and he will chastise little Joseph. 
And though the old fellow has not come out in open war upon him, 
and arrayed the force and arms of the Government to kill the boy, 
yet he sleeps in his chair, and dreams it over, and talks in his sleep, 
saying, “Go it, boys; go it, boys; we will not say anything here.’ 
And Tom, Bill, Dick, &c., commence pounding on to little Joseph; 
and the old man is dozing in his chair, saying, ‘Go it, boys.’ What 
will become of little Joseph? I will tell you. We are a child of the 
Government, one of the youngest children, and we cling to our 
parent, and desire to be reckoned in the family, and to hail our 
brethren as brethren, and be numbered among them either in a 
Territorial or State capacity. What next? The cry is raised by 
the older boys that ‘it never will do to admit this younger child into 
the Union, he is an alien, and we must exclude him.’ I will tell you 
what this will amount to, they will pound and abuse little Joseph 
until his affections are entirely weaned from his parent, and from 
his brethren, and he becomes an independent boy. Who will cause 
this, the ‘Mormons’? No, the elder brethren will do it. They will 
urge on their hostility against little Joseph until he is driven into 
Egypt for succor. Well, if this is not Egypt enough, where will 
you find it?”? 


Those who took the most active part in the opposition to the 
Mormons were the federal officers who were sent to Utah to 
occupy the positions of United States judges. Appointments in 
the far-away territory were not considered either profitable or 
pleasurable, and only the lowliest hangers-on of the political ad- 
ministration accepted them or asked for them. In exaggerated 


1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 185. 


378 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


terms, but with a sentiment that was on the whole true, John | 
Taylor once described in a sermon the process by which federal - 
officers were selected for Utah: 


“When a President is elected, a crowd of men press around him, 
like so many hungry dogs, for a division of the spoils, saying, ‘Mr. 
President, what are you going to do for our town? Remember, 
here is Mr. So-and-so, who took a prominent position. We want 
such a one in such an office.’ And, finally, after worryings and 
teasings, and whining and begging, some of those little men, mean, 
contemptible pups, doggery men, broken-down lawyers, or common, 
dirty, political hacks, bring up the rear, swelled up like swill barrels; 
they come to the table for the fragments, and, with a hungry maw 
and not very delicate stomach, whine out, ‘Won’t you give me a 
place, if it is only in Utah?’ In order to stop the howling, the 
President says, ‘Throw a bone to that dog, and let him go out’; 
and he comes out a great big ‘United States’ officer, dressed in a 
lion’s garb, it is true, but with the bray of an ass. He comes here, 
carrying out his groggery and whoring operations, and seeking 
to introduce among us eastern civilization. 

“The people here, however, feel a little astonished, some of them, 
although they are not very much astonished at anything that trans- 
pires; and when they look at him, they say in their simplicity, ‘Why, 
that man is acting like a beast.2 His majesty, however, swells up, 
struts and puffs, and blows, and says, “You must not insult me: I 
am a United States’ officer; you are disloyal. I am a United States’ 
officer; don’t speak to me.’ Of course, you are, and a glorious 
representative you are.” ? 


The public pronouncements and personal habits of the early 
federal officers who were sent to preside over them annoyed the 
Mormons more than any of their official acts. Particularly did 
they resent the characters and actions of Judge Brocchus and 
Judge Drummond. In September, 1851, a meeting was called at 
the Bowery in Salt Lake City to decide upon sending a block of 
marble as Utah’s contribution to the Washington Monument. 
Judge Perry E. Brocchus, who had arrived in Utah two months 
before, asked for permission to speak at the meeting, which was 
granted to him. He cautioned the Mormons against expressions 
of disloyalty to the Government, and in particular he referred 
to a fiery speech made on the occasion of the last Pioneer Day by 
Daniel H. Wells, in the course of which the Mormon leader had 


2 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 120. 


SHAM BATTLE 379 


declared that “the United States were a stink in our nostrils.”’ 
The Judge also referred to a sermon of Brigham Young’s con- 
cerning Zachary Taylor, late President of the United States, who 
had died in 1850, and whose death was announced to the people 
‘by Brigham Young in the following words: “Zachary Taylor is) 
dead and gone to hell, and I am glad of it! I prophesy, in the | 
name of Jesus Christ, and by the power of the priesthood that is | 
upon me, that any other President of the United States who shall 
lift his finger against this people, will die an untimely death, and . 
%o to hell.” Judge Brocchus remarked that unless the Mormons 
could send their block of marble with sincerity and loyalty behind 
it, they should not send it at all. The Judge had begun his speech 
in a friendly tone, thanking the Mormons for their kindness to 
him during a recent illness: ““He had been sick among them,” said 
a report of the speech, ‘‘and been kindly treated; the flies had been 
brushed from his face by a lady, and he was thankful.”’ Then he 
gave his advice concerning loyalty; which was received in silence, 
and followed this by addressing himself to the ladies and advising 
them “‘to become virtuous,” the implication being that to do so 
they must abandon polygamy. Immediately the congregation was 
in an uproar, for if there was one thing a lady living in polygamy 
could not endure it was the implication that she was doing so for 
pleasure rather than out of duty. Several Mormons clamored to 
answer Judge Brocchus, but Brigham Young arose and calmed 
the turbulence. 

Brigham Young remarked that Judge Brocchus had insulted 
them, and reiterated his earnest opinion that Zachary Taylor was 
at that moment in hell. When the Judge objected again, Heber 
Kimball rose, tapped him on the shoulder, and assured him that 
he need not doubt it, for he would see General Taylor when he 
himself got there. This assurance took on the nature of an 
ominous threat, when Brigham Young said later concerning the 
incident: “If I had but crooked my little finger, he would have 
been used up; but I did not bend it. If I had, the sisters alone felt 
indignant enough to have chopped him in pieces.” This state- 
ment when carried to the eastern states, impressed the people 
more with the power of Brigham Young’s little finger than with 
his restraint. 

Judge Brocchus left Utah with his associate judges soon after 
this incident, and they wrote a statement of conditions there, by 
which they intended to arouse sympathy for their position and 


380 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


opposition to the Mormons, but, unfortunately for their cause, 
they included in their exposé the statement: ‘Polygemy monopo- 
lized all the women, which made it very inconvenient for the 
Federal officers there.’ That sentence was seized upon by the 
Mormons to indicate their character, and accepted by the Gentiles 
as proof of their immorality. 

After the hurried departure of Judge Brocchus and his asso- 
ciates the next United States officials with whom Brigham Young 
had to deal were Colonel E. J. Steptoe and Judge J. T. Kinney. 
The Mormons received these officials courteously, and they liked 
the Mormons. At the time there was opposition to the reap- 
pointment of Brigham Young as Governor of the Territory of 
Utah, and the new officials endeared themselves to the Mormons 
by sending a petition to President Franklin Pierce, urging him to 
reappoint Brigham Young, and praising highly the Mormon 
President’s ability, honesty, and loyalty to the Constitution. 
President Pierce reappointed Brigham Young as Governor, and 
on the celebration of the following Fourth of July, 1855, this 
toast was offered by the Mormons in gratitude: “President Frank- 
lin Pierce—may he live till his popularity is equal to his virtues; 
and may no future President of the United States do any more 
harm or less good.” 

The Mormons gave a grand ball in honor of Colonel Steptoe 
and Judge Kinney. They were introduced to the leading ladies 
of the community, but, according to the Mormons, these officers 
returned the hospitality,of their hosts by attempts upon the virtue 
of their wives. Heber Kimball, with the vigor and frankness for 
which he was famous in the community, denounced Colonel Step- 
toe and Judge Kinney in the pulpit as seducers, and openly ac- 
cused them of what he called “breaking through the bulwarks with 
women,” and taking “‘unhallowed liberties with the females.” It 
was soon after revealed by the Mormons that the United States 
military officers and their soldiers had seduced Indian squaws. 
The officers left the Territory and denounced the Mormons as 
much as they had previously praised them. 

It was Judge W. W. Drummond, however, who shocked the 
Mormons more than any other federal official because of his per- 
sonal habits, and irritated them more than any other Gentile by 
his reports of their own conduct. The Judge came to Utah with 
a woman who was not his wife, after abandoning the woman 
who was, together with their children. When he heard cases 


SHAM BATTLE 381 


against the Mormons, the lady friend with whom he was trav- 
eling sat on the bench beside him and wrote billets doux to the 
judge while he was supposed to be listening to the evidence. This 
loving exchange of affection between the Judge and his lady took 
place at a murder trial once, and when Bill Hickman heard of it, 
he was very angry: “I heard this,” he wrote in ‘his confessions, 
“in Salt Lake City a few days before leaving for Filmore and 
made an assertion on the street that if I had a murder case before 
him, and he had that woman on the bench, I would kick them 
both out of the house. He heard this before I got to Filmore, 
and issued a bench warrant for my arrest for contempt of court. 
I heard of it when I got to town, and said if he served such a 
writ on me I would horsewhip him. It was not served.” Judge 
Drummond was highly contemptuous of public opinion, for be- | 
sides his public acknowledgment of his mistress, he told Remy, 
the French naturalist and author who was visiting Salt Lake City 
at the time, that money was his god, “and he added, without 
shame, that we might note this profession of his faith in our 
journal.” Heber Kimball said of Judge Drummond in a sermon: 
“There is a poor curse who has written the bigger part of those 
lies which have been printed in the States; and I curse him, in the 
name of Israel’s God, and by the Priesthood and authority of 
Jesus Christ; and the disease that is in him shall sap and dry up 
the fountain of life and eat him up. Some of you may think 
that he has not the disease I allude to; but he is full of pox from 
the crown of his head to the point of its beginning. That is the 
curse of that man; it shall be so, and all Israel shall say, Amen. 
(The vast congregation of Saints said, ‘Amen.’)” ® 

In an angry sermon which he delivered on Sunday morning, 
February 18, 1855, Brigham Young told his objections to the 
United States judges and soldiers who were sent from Washing- 
ton to help him govern Utah: 


“Now I will tell you one thing that I am opposed to, and that 
this people are opposed to; it is to a man’s coming here as an 
officer, with a bit of sheep’s skin in his pocket having some great 
man’s name to it, and saying, ‘I am a gentleman, I am a high-minded 
gentleman; can you tell me where I can find a woman to sleep with 
me to-night?’ and setting up gambling shops, and drinking, and 
carousing, and stirring up strife, and hatching up law-suits ; hunting 


3 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 32. 


382 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


out disaffected spirits, and then lecturing the people on morality, 
wishing them to become like other communities, and saying to Mrs. 
Such-a-one or Miss Such-a-one, ‘Won’t you ride with me—won’t 
you take a sleigh ride to-night with me? I ama high-minded gentle- 
man.’ A prudent father, or husband, says, “Come home here; this 
is your place; you have no business with strangers.’ What is the 
result of this? Why, from most of the high-minded gentlemen, you 
can hear, ‘God damn the Mormons, they are opposed to the Federal 
Government, because they will not let us sleep with their wives and 
daughters.’ I am opposed to such men, and am after them with the 
barbed arrows of the Almighty. To what extent? Let them intrude 
upon the chastity of my family, and, so help me God, I will use 
them up. (All the congregation said, ‘Amen.’) Such characters 
may cry, ‘Aliens, aliens; the Mormons are all hostile to the govern- 
ment,’ and they may cry it until they are in hell.” * 


The United States officials did cry, “Aliens, Aliens!” and they 
were listened to with consideration in Washington. They spread 
rumors that the Mormons not only lacked respect and loyalty for 
the United States Government, but that Brigham Young had 
threatened them with personal danger in his sermons, and they 
forgot to mention that the only threats he made against them 
were directed against their personal conduct rather than their 
official acts. The result was an agitation in Washington to re- 
move Brigham Young as Governor of Utah, to which he replied 
in a sermon: “We have got a Territorial Government, and I am 
and will be Governor, and no power can hinder it, until the Lord 
Almighty says, ‘Brigham, you need not be Governor any longer’ ; 
and then I am willing to yield to another Governor.”* This atti- 
tude of defiance occasioned much newspaper comment in the East, 
and soon men in Washington and newspapers elsewhere began to 
advocate sending an army to Utah for the purpose of placing in 
power a new governor and of protecting the United States judges 
who were sent there. 


IT 


In 1857 President Franklin Pierce, who had been negatively 
friendly to the Mormons, was no longer in office, and James 
Buchanan was President of the United States. In his first annual 


* Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, pp. 182-183. 
5 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 187. 


SHAM BATTLE 383 


message to Congress on December 8, 1857, Buchanan pointed out 
that Brigham Young was Governor of Utah, Superintendent of 
Indian Affairs of the Territory, and President of the Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 


“His power has been, therefore,’ wrote Buchanan, “absolute over 
both church and State. The people of Utah, almost exclusively, be- 
long to this church, and believing with a fanatical spirit that he is 
governor of the Territory by divine appointment, they obey his com- 
mands as if these were direct revelations from Heaven. If, there- 
fore, he chooses that his government shall come into collision with 
the government of the United States, the members of the Mormon 
church will yield implicit obedience to his will. Unfortunately, 
existing facts leave but little doubt that such is his determination. 
Without entering upon a minute history of occurrences, it is suffi- 
cient to say that all the officers of the United States, judicial and 
executive, with the single exception of two Indian agents, have 
found it necessary for their personal safety to withdraw from the 
Territory, and there no longer remains any government in Utah but 
the despotism of Brigham Young. This being the condition of 
affairs in the Territory, I could not mistake the path of duty. As 
Chief Executive Magistrate, I was bound to restore the supremacy 
of the Constitution and laws within its limits. In order to effect 
this purpose, I appointed a new governor and other federal officers 
for Utah, and sent with them a military force for their protection, 
and to aid as a posse comitatus, in case of need, in the execution 
of the laws.” ® 


President Buchanan went on to say that with the religious opin- 
ions of the Mormons he had no quarrel, ‘“‘as long as they remained 
mere opinion.” He then accused Brigham Young of gathering 
arms and munitions and of tampering with the Indians for the 
purpose of making them hostile towards the United States Gov- 
ernment. “This is the first rebellion,’ Buchanan added, “which 
has existed in our Territories; and humanity itself requires that 
we should put it down in such a manner that it shall be the last. 
To trifle with it would be to encourage it and to render it formida- 
ble. We ought to go there with such an imposing force as to 
convince these deluded people that resistance would be vain, and 
thus spare the effusion of blood. We can in this manner best con- 
vince them that we are their friends, not their enemies.”’. And to 
convince the Mormons more fully that the United States were 


6 Works of James Buchanan, vol. 10, pp. 152-154. 


384 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


their friends and not their enemies, Mr. Buchanan asked for the 
right to raise four additional regiments, besides the 2,500 troops: 
he had already despatched to Utah. 

Mr. Seth Pecksniff would have shouted “Bravo” to Mr. James 
Buchanan’s message, and that is exactly what a Pecksniffian Con- 
gress did when it voted the additional regiments and the money 
necessary for this military expedition. The explanation of Presi- 
dent Buchanan’s action does not lie, however, in his message to 
Congress. He had read the reports of federal officers in Utah, 
it is true, and he felt sincerely that the Mormons were in a state 
of mild rebellion, but he himself was suffering from a great fear 
of secession. Almost as soon as Buchanan became President, the 
conflict over slavery began to assume dangerous proportions, and 
throughout his administration he was in terror of being forced 
into a civil war. By sending troops to Utah, Buchanan wished 
to demonstrate to the southern states that the federal government 
would not countenance rebellion. There was also a more immedi- 
ate reason for the expedition. John B. Floyd was Buchanan’s 
Secretary of War. General Scott, who was Chief of Staff, wrote 
later in his Memoirs: “The expedition set on foot by Mr. Secre- 
tary Floyd, in 1857, against the Mormons and Indians about 
Salt Lake was, beyond a doubt, to give occasion for large con- 
tracts and expenditures, that is, to open a wide field for frauds 
and peculation. This purpose was not comprehended nor scarcely 
suspected in, perhaps, a year; but, observing the desperate char- 
acters who frequented the Secretary, some of whom had desks 
near him, suspicion was at length excited." It is said also that 
Floyd planned this expedition of the best part of the trained 
standing army to far-away Utah, because he was a southerner and 
wished, if the prevalent threats of war should result in a conflict, 
to have as much of the northern army as possible where they 
could not return in a hurry. Several millions of dollars were 
spent on supplies for the army, and the man who furnished it 
with flour made a profit of $170,000. ‘‘Who has made the money 
in what is called the “Utah War’?” asked Brigham Young in the 
pulpit. “Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War, expected to make a large 
amount. When he started his crusade, I considered that he would 
make some five millions of dollars. He has probably done so, 
and he will lose the whole of it, and will become a stink and a 


hd ce of Lieut. General Winfield Scott, Written by Himself, vol. 2, 
Pp. 004, 


SHAM BATTLE 385 


by-word among his friends, and will rot; and very many of you 
will see it come to pass.” * This prediction came true. In 1860 
Buchanan asked for Floyd’s resignation because of scandal over 
army contracts. In the following year he was indicted for frauds 
in connection with the Department of Interior, but there was not 
enough evidence to warrant a trial. When the Civil War finally 
broke out, Floyd joined the Confederate States Army as a high 
officer, and when the army with which he was stationed was 
forced to surrender, he fled with his troops and was relieved of his 
command. In 1863 he died. 

There was also a political reason for Buchanan’s expedition 
against Brigham Young. The new Republican Party, with John 
C. Frémont as its candidate, had adopted in its platform at the 
last election a plank signifying that the party was opposed to 
“those twin relics of barbarism—polygamy and slavery.” They 
also had adopted that phrase as their campaign slogan, and this 
placed their rivals the Democrats under the necessity of doing 
something, or at least, appearing to do something, about the Mor- 
mons, since they did not dare alienate their stronghold of power, 
the South, by even appearing to do something about slavery. 
Buchanan was a Democrat, and it was up to him to act so that 
his party could go into the next campaign with something to its 
credit against polygamous Utah. Stephen Douglas, the most 
popular Democrat of the time, had done his share by his speech 
which we have already quoted, in which he called Mormonism an 
ulcer in the body politic that must be cut out if it could be removed 
in no other way. To which statement Heber Kimball replied in 
a sermon: “They [the U. S. troops] are out there: they have 
been sitting on Ham’s Fork so long, it has begun to ulcerate, as 
that nasty fop Douglas, uses the term,—that little nasty snot- 
nose: you cannot call him anything half so mean as he is—the 
nastiest of all nasties that God could suffer on the earth.” The 
well-known policy of the Democrats was complete freedom for 
the territories to decide whether they wished slaves. It might be 
argued with logic that the territories should also have enjoyed 
freedom to decide whether they were to have wives, but north 
and south were able to unite against polygamy, for the south had 
many slaves and did not have many wives. The results were 
Douglas’s speech and Buchanan’s expedition. | 

General Harney was appointed by the War Department to lead 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 8, p. 357. 


386 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the expedition against Utah. He was known throughout the 
West by the unenviable and contemptuous addition to his name of | 
“the Squaw Killer,’ because of the nature of his activities in some 
of the Indian wars which had made him famous in the East, 
where they were talked about, and notorious in the West, where 
they were fought. General Harney did not wish the appointment, 
however, and he managed to get his orders changed, so that 
Brigadier-General Albert Sidney Johnston was appointed in his 
stead. 

Brigham Young planned a large camping party to Cottonwood 
Canyon to celebrate Pioneer Day, July 24, 1857. He had issued 
two thousand invitations to his friends and followers, and while 
they were enjoying themselves with games and songs, com- 
memorating the day of arrival in Utah, messengers came from 
Salt Lake City with news for Brigham Young that 2,500 United 
_ States soldiers had left the eastern states with a new governor for 
.. Utah and new judges for its courts. 

The Mormons began to prepare for defiance and for defense. 
Their sentiments were expressed ina song called “Du dah,” which 
was popular among them at the time: 


“Old Uncle Sam has sent, I understand, 
Du dah, 
A Missouri ass to rule our land, 
Du dah! Du dah day. 
But if he comes we’ll have some fun, 
Du dah, 
To see him and his juries run, 
Du dah! Du dah day. 


“Chorus: Then let us be on hand, 
By Brigham Young to stand, 
And if our enemies do appear, 
We'll sweep them from the land.” 


In his sermons Brigham Young denounced the army as nothing 
but another illegal mob set upon the Mormons by the government. 
‘They say,” he said, “that their army is legal, and I say that such 
a statement is as false as hell, and that they are as rotten as an 
old pumpkin that has been frozen seven times and then melted 
in a harvest sun. Come on with your thousands of illegally- 
ordered troops, and I will promise you, in the name of Israel’s 


SHAM BATTLE 387 


God, that you shall melt away as the snow before a July sun.” ® 
Brigham Young refused to acknowledge the soldiers as part of 
the army of the United States until he, as Governor of Utah, 
should be officially notified that they were such, and he promised 
to treat them as he would an armed mob of Missourians bent on 
destroying the Mormons. As Governor of Utah he issued a 
proclamation of martial law, in the course of which he wrote: 
“We are condemned unheard, and forced to an issue with an 
armed mercenary mob, which has been sent against us at the 
instigation of anonymous letter-writers, ashamed to father the 
base, slanderous falsehoods which they have given to the public; 
of corrupt officials who have brought false accusations against us 
to screen themselves in their own infamy; of hireling priests and 
howling editors, who prostitute the truth for filthy lucre’s sake.”’ 

Heber Kimball was as defiant as his leader. “Send 2,500 
troops here, our brethren,” he said one Sunday morning in a 
sermon, “to make a desolation of this people! God Almighty 
helping me, I will fight until there is not a drop of blood in my 
veins. Good God! I have wives enough to whip out the United 
States ; for they will whip themselves. Amen.” He also advised 
the men of the congregation to go to sleep each night with bowie 
knives and loaded revolvers under their pillows, and he described 
Buchanan’s aims in these words: ‘‘Then came President Pierce, 
and he did not strive to injure us. We hoped that the next after 
him would do us justice; but he has issued orders to send troops 
to kill brother Brigham and me, and to take the young women 
to the States. The woman will be damned that will go: she shall 
dry up in the fountain of life, and be as though she never was. 
But there ain’t any a-going, (Voices: ‘There are none that want 
to go!’) unless they are whores. If the soldiers come here, those 
creatures will have the privilege of showing themselves and of 
becoming debauched.” *° 

In spite of the boldness of their leaders, many of the Mormons 
were frightened at the prospect of an invading army. John Tay- 
lor offered them this comfort in one of his sermons: “ ‘But,’ says 
one, ‘I have got a son, who has gone out upon the Plains, and 
perhaps the soldiers will kill him.’ Let them kill him. (President 
Kimball, “There can be more made.’) I suppose there can... . 
I have seen the time I could have died as easily as to have turned 


9 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 230. 
10 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. “38. 89; p. 132. 


388 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


my hand over; but I did not feel like it. (President H. C. Kim- 
ball: ‘You did not have time.’) Supposing I live, I have got a 
work to do; and if I die, I shall still be engaged in the cause of 
Zion. Why, great conscience! what difference does it make? 
They can only kill the body. And do not we know that we have 
an interest beyond the grave ?—that we have drunk of that foun- 
tain which springs up into eternal lives? Then what difference 
does it make?’ Although the Mormons knew that they had an 
interest beyond the grave, and felt that the soldiers could only 
kill the body, it did seem to make some difference, for many of 
them remained frightened even after this reassurance. Even 
Brigham Young, although he never showed signs of fear or anx- 
iety, was determined to take care of this mortal coil. “And if the 
wicked should succeed in taking my life,” he said, “the keys of 
the kingdom will remain with the Church. But my faith is that 
they will not succeed in taking my life just yet. They have not 
as good a man to deal with as they had when they had Joseph 
smith. I do not profess to be very good. I will try to take care 
of number one, and if it is wicked for me to try to preserve 
myself, I shall persist in it; for I am intending to take care of 
myself.’ ** To that end he is said to have carried a large bone- 
handled bowie knife with him every day, and to have placed a 
loaded rifle on the wall behind his desk. 

Brigham Young also used the impending arrival of troops as 
an argument in favor of his pet policy, home manufacture of 
goods. Every Sunday in the pulpit he or one of his associates 
urged the people to make their own clothes instead of wasting 
money by purchasing them from Gentile traders, for soon they 
would be cut off from the channels of trade by an invading army. 

~The plan of defense which Brigham Young formulated was 
bold, daring, and spectacular. He planned sincerely to burn Salt 
Lake City and move his entire people into the desert settlements 
of the south. As part of the preparation for this plan Brigham 
Young warned his people: 


“T have told you that if this people will live their religion, all will 
be well; and I have told you that if there is any man or woman that 
is not willing to destroy anything and everything of their property 
that would be of use to an enemy, if left, I wanted them to go out 
of the Territory; and I again say so to-day ; for when the time comes 


11 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 76-77; p. 191. 


SHAM BATTLE 389 


to burn and lay waste our improvements, if any man undertakes to 
shield his, he will be sheared down; for ‘judgment will be laid to 
the line and righteousness to the plummet.’ Now the faint-hearted 
can go in peace; but should that time come, they must not inter- 
fere. Before I will suffer what I have in times gone by, there 
shall not be one building, nor one foot of lumber, nor a stick, nor 
a tree, nor a particle of grass and hay, that will burn, left in reach 
of our enemies. I am sworn, if driven to extremity, to utterly lay 
waste, in the name of Israel’s God.” !” 


Then all those who were willing to set fire to their property rather’) 
than to submit to military rule, were asked to raise their hands,, 
and all the hands in the congregation were raised. This was 
neither braggadocio nor an insincere threat. In preparation for 
the execution of this plan, people began to move from the land 
and houses which it had cost them ten years of toil to develop and 
to build. The Deseret News press was moved to Fillmore, where 
the paper was published for eighteen weeks. The grain in the 
Church tithing house was sent to the southern settlements, and all 
the Church records were packed in cases and taken to Provo, 
where a temporary Church office was established. The Mormons 
were particularly anxious to leave no grain and provisions for the 
_advancing troops. Meanwhile, thirty thousand Mormons got into 
\ their waggons with all their movable possessions and started | © 
ae Brigham Young said of this exodus: “It has been asked, 
ve you counted the cost?’ Yes, for ourselves; but I cannot 
begin to count it for our enemies. It will cost them all they have 
in this world, and will land them in hell in the world to come, 
while the only trouble with us is that we have two or three times 
more men than we need for using up all who can come here to 
deprive us of our rights. . . . “Will you ask any odds of them?’ 
No; in the name of Israel’s God we will not; for as soon as we 
ask odds, we get ends—of bayonets.” *° 
Meanwhile, Captain Van Vliet, who had been sent ahead to 
purchase forage and lumber for the United States troops, arrived 
in Salt Lake City on September 8, 1857. He had been told that 
he would not be allowed to enter the Territory, but he was 
received cordially by Brigham Young. He assured the Mormons 
that the troops would not molest them if they did not molest the 
troops and received their new governor and judges without oppo- 


12 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 232. 
13 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 232. 


390 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


sition. One of the accusations against Brigham Young was that — 
he detained in Utah those who wished to leave the Territory. 
In a discourse before Captain Van Vliet and the assembled con- 
geregation Brigham Young said: “If it were any use, I would ask 
whether there is ONE person in this congregation who wants to 
go to the United States; but I know that I should not find any. 
But I will pledge myself that if there is a man, woman, or child 
that wants to go back to the States, if they will pay their debts, 
and not steal anything, they can go; and if they are poor and 
honest, we will help them to go. That has been my well-known 
position all the time.” ** Brigham Young once made this offer to 
the government: “TI will make this proposition to Uncle Sam. I 
will furnish carriages, horses, the best of drivers, and the best 
food I have, to transport to the States every man, woman, and 
child that wishes to leave this place, if he will send on at his own 
expense all those who want to come to Utah; and we will gain a 
thousand to their one, as all who understand the matter very well 
know.” Later, Governor Alfred Cumming posted a notice that 
he would furnish protection to any people to go where they 
pleased. Of the entire community fifty-six men, thirty-three 
women, and seventy-one children were registered in his office as 
desirous of leaving Utah with federal aid, and these were, accord- 
ing to the Governor, people who “desire to improve their circum- 
stances and realize elsewhere more money by their labor.” 

While the troops were on the way, and the Mormons were 
moving out, Colonel Thomas L. Kane arrived in Salt Lake City. 
He had been friendly with the Mormons eleven years before dur- 
ing their exodus from Nauvoo, and he had been their unofficial 
defender at Washington ever since. Colonel Kane persuaded 
Brigham Young, who valued his opinion and trusted his sincerity, 
to receive and to recognize the new governor, without any escort 
of troops. When he had received Brigham Young’s promise to 
compromise to this extent, Colonel Kane started east to join the 
army, and he persuaded Alfred Cumming, the new governor, to 
proceed to Salt Lake City without troops. 

As Governor Cumming proceeded to Salt Lake City, he was 
escorted by Mormon militia and was greeted by the Mormon 
band, which played The Star-Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle, 
and Hail, Columbia, as a testimonial of Mormon loyalty. The 
Governor said later that such enthusiasm for the national airs 

14 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 230. 


SHAM BATTLE 391 


could not possibly be feigned. In order to impress the new gov- 
ernor with their military strength, the Mormon militia stopped 
his convoy every few miles. This was done at night, and the 
password was demanded. ‘Then the same company of militia 
dashed a few miles ahead of the Governor’s escort, and a different 
voice asked for the password. The Governor thus received the 
impression that the mountains were filled with Brigham Young’s 
troops. 

After Brigham Young received Governor Cumming, the war 
was not ended, for he had not yet consented to receive the ad- 
vancing troops. He still insisted that if the troops camped in 
Salt Lake City, he would burn the city, and the exodus of its 
Mormon inhabitants continued. Meanwhile, the Mormon militia 
were doing everything possible to make the journey of the troops 
difficult. They burned the grass in advance of the army, so that 
their animals were weak from lack of fodder; they caused stam- 
pedes among the army’s cattle and set fire to several trains of its 
provisions. The Mormon men were ordered not to shed blood 
if it was possible to avoid it, but to do their utmost to annoy the 
expedition. Brigham Young gave ironically the reason for burn- 
ing the grass, ‘““That we may have a better crop next year, which, 
you are aware, is customary in prairie regions.”’ 

Brigham Young, as the troops were coming closer, declared that 
he would make “‘a Moscow of Utah, and a Potter’s Field of every 
canyon” if the soldiers fought the Mormons. The exodus and 
this. determination to burn what they had spent ten years in | 

/ building were of great sentimental value to the Mormons, for their / 

- daring was reported in the eastern newspapers and captured the/ 

- imagination of the public, who did not bother about the political 

\ issues involved. And: those people who had been in the minds 
of newspaper readers lascivious, bearded villains who dared to 
live openly with more wives than one, became sturdy martyrs 
who boldly and bravely sacrificed everything for the ime in thein 
religious freedom. Once more, and for the fourth time in the 

/ history, persecution had worked to the great advantage of the, 
Mormons, in spite of the material losses which it entailed. Before 

Pee Buchanan was blamed for a blunderer, and Brigham Young 
praised as a statesman by the newspapers of the eastern states. 

Meanwhile, the 2,500 United States soldiers were slowly, and 
with difficulty, making their way across the country. General 
Albert Sidney Johnston discovered after unpacking the supplies 


392 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


furnished to him that, in spite of the several millions of dollars 
which they had cost the government, nothing was right. For the 
2,500 men there were 3,150 bedsacks, useful for pleasure parties 
picnicking in summer, but useless for soldiers wintering 7,000 
feet above sea level in mountains where the temperature was 
always below zero during the night. The supplies unfortunately 
contained only 723 blankets for the 2,500 men. More than 1,500 
pairs of epaulets and metallic ornaments for collars and caps were 
carefully packed, but there were only 938 coats and 676 great 
coats. There were 307 cap-covers, but only 190 caps. There were 
only 823 pairs of boots and 600 pairs of stockings, but there were 
1,190 military stocks. 

The Quartermaster’s Department had neglected to provide any 
salt for the soldiers’ food, believing that carrying salt to Salt 
Lake was comparable to carrying coals to Newcastle, but in the 
practical action on this principle, the officials neglected to take into 
consideration that it was a long journey to Salt Lake. Brigham 
Young heard of the lack of salt and the inconvenience it was 
causing the troops. He sent some of his men to the army with 
several mule teams loaded with salt, “enough,” he wrote to Gen- 
eral Johnston, “‘to last until spring, when the army should retrace 
its steps to the United States, as enter the Mormon settlement it 
should not.”? But General Johnston refused the salt because he 
felt that he could not recognize Brigham Young by accepting a 
present from him. “Your salt,’ he told the Mormon messengers, 
“you will take back with you; not, as I tell you, because I suspect 
its purity, but I will not accept a present from an enemy of my 
Government.” Brigham Young had suggested testing the purity 
on the Mormon messengers. 

General Johnston, with the tactics of a soldier rather than the 
tact of a diplomat, wished to give the Mormons an opportunity 
to join issue with the troops and thereby settle their obedience 
once for all by a spanking. But President Buchanan took more 
seriously their threat to burn their homes, and he also did not 
wish to incur the expense of a long guerilla war in the mountains, 
for the United States treasury was low. 

The only acts of hostility committed by the Mormons were the 
burning of Fort Bridger and Fort Supply, where the troops had 
planned to spend the winter, and the capture and burning of 
seventy-five waggons loaded with provisions and tents. General 
Johnston sent ahead an advance expedition under Colonel Alex- 


SHAM BATTLE 393 


ander while the main body of troops spent the winter at Fort 
Bridger. Colonel Alexander and his command encamped a short 
distance from Salt Lake City, and Brigham Young started a 
correspondence with the Colonel by sending him two copies of the 
latest numbers of the Deseret News to “enliven the monotonous 
routine of camp life.” The relations of the enemies were most 
cordial. Brigham Young invited Colonel Alexander and his 
troops to visit the city and promised them an escort there and 
back to their camp. He also allowed those residents of the city 
who had friends in the camp to visit it. In one of his letters to 
Colonel Alexander Brigham Young wrote: “If you persist in 
your attempt to permanently locate an army in this Territory, 
contrary to the wishes and constitutional rights of the people 
therein, and with a view to aid the administration in their un- 
hallowed efforts to palm their corrupt officials upon us, and to 
protect them and blacklegs, black-hearted scoundrels, whoremas- 
ters, and murderers, as was the sole intention in sending you and 
your troops here, you will have to meet a mode of warfare 
against which your tactics furnish you no information.” When 
Colonel Alexander answered by complaining against the Mormon 
mode of warfare—burning and running away—Brigham Young 
answered him in a sermon: “Colonel Alexander complains of our 
mode of warfare. They have two or more field-batteries of 
artillery with them, and they want us to form a line of battle in 
an open plain and give them a fair chance to shoot us. I did not 
tell the Colonel what I thought; but if he had a spark of sense, he 
must be a fool to think that we will ever do any such thing. I 
am going to observe the old maxim— 


““He that fights and runs away 
Lives to fight another day.’”’ 


In another sermon Brigham Young told his people what he might 
do if he were a United States army officer sent to Utah to fight 
Mormons: | 


“Were I an officer sent to Utah for the purpose of aiding the un- 
hallowed oppression of the innocent, (and in this connection I dis- 
claim all personalities) I would know the facts in the case before 
I would make any hostile move; and sooner than side with tyranny 
and murder, I would resign my commission, and say, ‘Take it and 
stick it in your boot, and go to hell, and I will go my way.’ And 


394. BRIGHAM YOUNG 


I would rather go and raise my own potatoes for my wives and. 
children than to hold office under such a set of administrators and 
bow down to their wicked designs; though, if I were of the world, 
I should probably do as the rest do,” 2° 


President Buchanan sent to Utah in addition to the army two 
peace commissioners, Powell and McCulloch, and they bore a 
proclamation from the President telling the inhabitants of Utah 
that they were in a state of rebellion, but offering them pardon 
for all their sins and crimes if they would receive Governor Cum- 
ming and his escort of soldiers. Governor Cumming had already 
been received in the empty city, but the reception must have been 
very formal, for Brigham Young told his people in the pulpit 
that he hoped when the Governor came, “the feeling of the people 
would be cold enough to freeze peaches.’ Brigham Young 
finally consented to meet the peace commissioners, and he ex- 
pressed his willingness to compromise in these words: “I have 
no character—no pride to gratify—no vanity to please. If aman 
comes from the moon and says he will pardon me for kicking 
him in the moon yesterday, I don’t care about it, [ll accept his 
pardon, it don’t affect me one way or the other.” Some of the 
more belligerent Mormons wished Brigham Young to throw 
Buchanan’s pardon in his face, but he himself was convinced that 
he could agree with the new governor, who was patient and con- 
ciliatory, and perhaps he also realized that he could not fight the 
United States Government indefinitely without great damage to 
his people’s prosperity. It was arranged between Brigham Young 
and the peace commissioners that the troops should be allowed to 
march through Salt Lake City, but that they must not camp 
within the city. The spot selected for their camp was Cedar 
Valley, forty-four miles away. 

“By this time the only Mormons left in Salt Lake Cay were 
- those who had been stationed there with straw and kindling, ready 
_ to start the fire on instructions from their leaders. The final 
entry of Johnston and his troops into deserted Salt Lake City 
was described by an army correspondent: 


“All day long, from dawn until sunset, the troops and trains 
poured through the city, the utter silence of the streets being broken 
only by the music of the military bands, the monotonous tramp of 


15 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 235. 


SHAM BATTLE 395 


the regiments, and the rattle of the baggage waggons. Early in the 
morning the Mormon guards had forced all their fellow-religionists 
into the houses, and ordered them not to make their appearance dur- 
ing the day. The numerous flags that had been flying from staffs 
on the public buildings during the previous weeks were all struck. 
The only visible groups of spectators were on the corners near 
Brigham Young’s residence, and consisted almost entirely of gentile 
civilians. The stillness was so profound that during the intervals 
between the passage of the columns, the monotonous gurgle of the 
city creek struck on every ear.” 


‘ Soon afterwards Brigham Young brought his people back 
to Salt Lake City from the settlements in the south, and the war 
between the Mormons and the government was ostensibly finished. 
It has always been a source of ironic interest to the Mormons 
that General Albert Sidney Johnston, who was vehement in his 
opinions against the rebels of Utah, several years later became a 
hero of the Confederate States Army, and died fighting against 
the United States at the Battle of Shiloh. 

‘The Utah Expedition cost the United States Government 
$15,000,000, and accomplished nothing that could not have been 
accomplished by tactful negotiations with Brigham Young. It 
was known in the United States as “Buchanan’s blunder,’ and 
“caused considerable ridicule in Europe, where the dramatic exodus 
of the Mormons from their city and the threat to burn it were 
compared with the daring of the Dutch when they submerged 
Holland to save it from France. Brigham Young was referred 
to as a new Prince of Orange. 

During the occupation of Utah by the United States troops 
there was much disorder. The army had been accompanied by 
the usual quantity and quality of camp-followers, whose occupa- 
tions were gambling, drinking, and private quarrels. Their influ- 
ence on the young Mormons was strong, and at one time there 
was, it is said, a murder every week on the streets of Salt Lake 
City. Coupled with these were murders said to have been author- 
ized and stimulated by the Church and by Brigham Young, in the 
effort to persuade the undesirable element to kill each other off. 

Civil War soon broke out in the East, and the army was recalled 
from Utah. Then Mormons could be seen on the streets in the 
blue uniforms of the United States Army, which they had pur- 
chased very cheaply at the sales of army material. Brigham 
Young bought up most of the army supplies, and he made a large 


396 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


profit by selling them to his people and to the Gentiles. It was 
not considered wise to sell munitions to Mormons, and therefore 
all that could not be carried back to the East were piled in pyra- 
mids and exploded to the delight of Mormon children and the 
chagrin of their economical fathers. 

Difficulties with governors and judges continued after the Utah 
Expedition. There was Judge Sinclair, who loved whiskey, and, 
according to the Church newspaper, was often found “lying in 
the street in a helpless condition.” He and one of the Indian 
agents, C. L. Craig, drew pistol and knife against each other, but 
both ‘‘were too drunk to do any hurt.” Judge Sinclair was 
remembered by the Mormons not only for his love of whiskey, 
but also as the judge who sentenced a man to be hanged on a 
Sunday. The day was changed, but the Mormons never forgot 
the Judge’s sacrilegious faux pas. President Lincoln’s appointee 
as territorial governor, John W. Dawson, arrived in Salt Lake 
City in December, 1861. His first official act was a speech on 
disloyalty. He had been in Utah two weeks when he made pro- 
posals to a woman which she did not take kindly, and the threats 
which her male relatives visited upon the Governor caused him 
to seek the seclusion of his lodgings. Some Mormons followed 
him there and beat him strenuously. Those who were guilty of 
this rash assault were tried and punished by the Mormons, for 
Brigham Young was very angry with them for their tactless 
conduct; one of the guilty was shot while trying to escape to 
California. 

Other governors succeeded, and there was perpetual wrangling 
and accusation. The governors accused the Mormons of murder, 
treason, and polygamy, and the Mormons accused the governors 
of. personal immorality and political ambition. It was unfortu- 
nate for their moral position that most of the men who held 
federal offices in Utah and spoke angrily against polygamy as a 
principle, were addicted in private to the acts which they so 
strenuously deplored as vices in public. They were far away from 
home and from neighbors whose opinions they considered it ad- 
visable to respect, and their position resembled that of soldiers in 
foreign wars, with the usual result in that situation of a complete 
exercise of the freedom of their natural impulses. To the Mor- 
mons, who coated their impulses with sanctity, the personal acts 
of the federal officials seemed outrageous and degenerate. 

Though he was no longer officially Governor of Utah, Brigham 


SHAM BATTLE 397 


Young’s influence with his people made him the supreme authority. 
“Though I may not be Governor here,” he said once, “my power 
will not be diminished. No man they can send here will have 
much influence with this conimunity, unless he be the man of 
their choice. Let them send whom they will, and it does not 
diminish my influence one particle. As I said, the first time I 
spoke on the stand, my Governorship and every other ship under 
my control, are aided and derive direct advantage from my posi- 
tion in the Priesthood.” 

Brigham Young believed that a good man should rule as long 
as he showed himself capable of ruling, and he was in favor of 
this not only in his own position, but in that of the President of 
the United States. “Can the Constitution be altered?’ he once 
asked. “It can; and when we get a President that answers our 
wishes to occupy the executive chair, there let him sit to the day 
of his death, and pray that he may live as long as Methuselah; 
and, whenever we have good officers, strive to retain them, and 
to fill up vacancies with good men, until there are none who would 
let the nation sink for a can of oysters and a lewd woman.” His 
whole political philosophy favored a benevolent, paternal despot- 
ism, which would force people to do what their righteous and 
religious leaders thought was best for them. 

During the Civil War Brigham Young sided with the North, 
but the Mormon part in that war consisted in keeping the Indians 
quiet. Lincoln had said, when asked what his policy towards the 
Mormons was, that he would let them alone if they would let him 
alone, and this unwritten agreement was kept. The outbreak of 
the Civil War was considered in Utah one of the crowning events 
of Mormon prophecy. Joseph Smith, as we have seen, predicted 
many years before that civil war would break out, and when it 
did the people were more than ever satisfied with their prophet. 
Brigham Young, however, urged his people not to boast about 
this triumph, for he was both sensitive enough and keen enough 
to realize that such an attitude would arouse the resentment of 
those who were fighting, and would outrage the religious sensi- 
bility of those who were watching. He desired neither the 
unnecessary opposition of Americans, nor the contempt of Euro- 
peans, for he needed them both in his business of building up a 
Mormon theocracy. 


Chapter XI 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 


I 


WHite the United States troops were still on their way to Utah 
to enforce submission to the government and to protect any who 
might need protection, there occurred the most terrible meet, 
(in Mormon history, and the one event which gave the color o 
truth to the stories of murder and oppression which had been. 
circulated concerning the Mormons for so long. The massacre \ 
/ of California emigrants which took place in the autumn of 1857 ; 
at Mountain Roca is an indelible Mormon crime, but it 1 
_ possible to understand its causes and its circumstances, for it. 
' was not, as anti-Mormons have claimed for so many years, a 
case of Sadistic joy in murder for its own sake, or the sudden 
\ outcrop of a long stimulated hatred for Gentiles. a 
“In order to nuderstend the Mountain Meadows Massacre, it is 
first necessary to realize the state of mind of the Mormons during 
1856 and 1857. During the year 1856 there took place, under 
the leadership of Brigham Young and his fiery associate, Jedediah 
M. Grant, what is known in the Mormon Church as the Reforma- 
tion. There had been during 1854 and 1855 a period of dan- 
gerous famine and intense hard times. This led some of the 
people to leave the valley of the Great Salt Lake and its crickets, 
grasshoppers, and drought, for California, where there were 
gold, warm days, and rich soil. Many Mormons were induced by 
the contrast with their own lot, however temporary their leaders 
insisted it was, and what seemed to be the eternal golden pros- 
perity of nearby California, to abandon their religion for the ease 
and comfort of this world. The religious community was thereby 
threatened with partial disintegration, and the leaders were thereby 
led to use exhortation, persuasion, and, finally, compulsion, to 
keep their people in what they sternly and sincerely believed were 
the paths of righteousness. Famine and hard times had also led 


to quarrels among the Saints about property and about wives. 
398 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 399 


Obedience to Brigham Young’s will was not so general as he 
wished and as he had been in the habit of expecting. Therefore, 
he and his associates, Jedediah Grant and Heber Kimball, decided 
to bring the people to a realization of the,value of virtue by 
vigorous action against vice. 

For one thing, the Saints had begun to ignore the Sabbath. 
The wars against grasshoppers and crickets had made it necessary 
to work sometimes on Sunday, and this led quickly to a habit of 
mind that regarded Sunday as the same as every other day. 
Then, too, the strong community spirit had inculcated in some 
men the habit of regarding their neighbor’s ox or his ass as their 
own, especially if they happened at the moment to be in great need 
of an ox or an ass. This soon developed into the same attitude 
toward a neighbor’s wife. It is said that at a meeting of the 
principal members of the priesthood, Brigham Young said in the 
course of a harangue: “All you who have been guilty of com- 
mitting adultery, stand up.” To his amazement and chagrin 
three-fourths of the brethren present promptly stood up. It was 
explained that Brother Brigham had meant, of course, that only 
those who had committed adultery since they became Mormons 
need stand. All the guilty brethren remained standing. Brig- 
ham Young was overwhelmed, and he prescribed immediate bap- 
tism for the remission of sins, and it was made clear that after 
this batch of sins had been washed away, they could be forgotten 
and need never again be acknowledged so publicly. 

Brigham H. Roberts, assistant historian of the Church, in dis- 
cussing what he termed the “sex sins’ of the community, wrote: 
“The unsettled life of the ten years between the exodus from 
Nauvoo and the beginning of ‘the Reformation’ was crowded with 
circumstances that lent themselves to continuous temptations in 
this kind of evil. There were the long weeks of ocean travel by 
mixed companies in slow-sailing vessels; followed by long jour- 
neys of the same mixed companies up the American rivers, in 
crowded steamboats; or day and night travel in more crowded 
railway trains to the western terminal of the railroads. Then 
there was the longer overland journeying by hand cart or ox 
train means of travel, all classes being thrown into constant and 
closest contact, which not all the care of the organized camp, nor 
the watchfulness of faithful pastors could rob of insidious and 
sometimes ruinous temptations.”’ * 


1 Americana, vol. 8, pp. 459-462. — 


400 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


mon one Sunday that not only were the Mormons “the best look- 


Brigham Young, with Yankee enthusiasm, declared in a set- ( 
| 
. 


ing and finest set of people on the face of the earth,” not only 
could they “pray the best, preach the best, sing the best,” but also 
that they had among them “the greatest and smoothest liars in the 
world, the cunningest and most adroit thieves, and any other, 
~shade of character that you can mention.” He said that the 
Gospel net dragged in all kinds of fish, and that many of them 
proved, upon closer inspection, to be rotten. 

Several times Brigham Young had said in the pulpit that those 
who wished to leave the Saints were free to do so if they paid 
their debts. What Brigham Young resented, however, was the 
action of apostates after they had left the Church. Apostates had 
done the Mormons so much harm with their enemies in Mis- 
souri and Illinois that Brigham Young had come to fear and to 
hate them for the tales they now told in California and in the 
East. It was determined during the Reformation to exercise as 
much intimidating control over the dissatisfied as possible, and 
this control in the last extremity extended sometimes to murder. 
There was, for example, the case of William Parrish, who had 
been one of the trusted members of the Church in Nauvoo. He 
became dissatisfied in Utah and made secret plans to leave for 
California. At the suggestion of Brigham Young, who knew 
everybody’s plans before they were consummated, Bishop John- 
son looked into Parrish’s intentions. The Bishop visited Parrish 
with two other agents of the Church, Durfee and Potter, and 
they gained his confidence by professions of their own dissatis- 
faction and by promises of aid. A week later Parrish’s horses 
were stolen. Finally, Durfee and Potter planned to aid Parrish 
to leave Utah. They arranged with him to meet him outside the 
city, and when they had met, Durfee returned to Salt Lake City 
to get Parrish’s two sons, Orrin and Beason. While Parrish 
and Potter were waiting for Durfee and the young boys, William 
Bird, who was lying in hiding, fired a shot, which by mistake hit 
Potter instead of Parrish. Potter died. Bird came into the 
open, and when Parrish asked him if he had killed Potter, he 
drew a bowie knife and stabbed Parrish fifteen times in the back, 
sides, and arms. Bird returned to his hiding-place, and when 
Durfee returned with Parrish’s two sons, William Bird from his 
ambush shot Beason dead and tried to kill Orrin, who escaped 
after the first shot hit his cartridge box. 


a 


i 4 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 401 


There were other cases of murder, not so well substantiated 
as the Parrish case, which was fully investigated by the federal 
official, Judge Cradlebaugh. It is clear that Brigham Young and 
his associates had aroused themselves to the point of fanaticism 
in their determination to keep men righteous by any means, 
and to prevent them from telling tales if they could not be kept 
faithful. It is claimed that during this wave of fanaticism men 
were not only murdered, but were sometimes flogged, and often 
castrated. How much of this was true, it is impossible to de- 
termine, but that some of it was true is easily discerned from the 
sermons of the time and the confessions of former Mormons. 
John D. Lee wrote: “In Utah it has been the custom of the 
Priesthood to make eunuchs of such men as were obnoxious to the 
leaders. This was done for a double purpose: first, it gave a 
perfect revenge, and next, it left the poor victim a living example 
to others of the dangers of disobeying counsel and not living as 
ordered by the Priesthood.” Lee also maintained that, “In Utah 
it was the favorite revenge of old, worn-out members of the 
Priesthood, who wanted young women sealed to them, and found 
that the girl preferred some handsome young man. ‘The old 
priests generally got the girls, and many a young man was unsexed 
for refusing.to give up his sweetheart at the request of an old 
and failing, but still sensual apostle or member of the Priest- 
hood.” ? 

Another of Brigham Young’s henchmen, who wrote his con-\ 
fessions, was Bill Hickman. He was a man who never objected 
to killing another man, if he felt that the man deserved to be 
dead, or if he was convinced that the act was necessary to preserve 
either himself or his Church from danger or inconvenience. 
When a man he was about to hang for murder told Hickman he 
would come back and haunt him for the rest of his life, Hickman 
calmly replied, “I am not much afraid of live men, and much less 
of dead ones.’ Bill Hickman was known for many years as 
Brigham Young’s Destroying Angel. In his book Hickman 
recorded his murders and his scalpings with a charming lack of 
bravado, shame, or sentimentality. He rarely implicates Brigham 
Young directly, but he intimates that in some instances the Presi- 


2 Mormonism Unveiled, by John D. Lee, p. 284. It is necessary to note that 
Lee’s book was touched up by his lawyer, W. W. Bishop, who claimed that he 
only altered a word or straightened a sentence here and there. But it is 
' possible that in the process he heightened an effect. 


402 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


dent of the Church let it be known that a man was undesirable, 
and then allowed Hickman to use his own violent judgment on 
the case. Hickman was capable of beating a man to death with 
the butt end of his rifle, literally without thinking about it after- 
wards, and he was at one time firmly convinced that anything 
Brigham Young ordered was just, and that in return for obedi- 
ence he would receive eternal spiritual salvation. 

Hickman was only one of the executioners of the Reformation, 
but Jedediah Grant was its firebrand. “As for you miserable, 
sleepy ‘Mormons,’”’ Grant said in a sermon, “‘who say to those 
wretches, [the Gentiles] ‘Give us your dimes, and you shall have 
our wheat, and our daughters, only give us your dimes and you 
shall have this, that; and the other,’ I not only wish but pray, in 
the name of Israel’s God, that the time was come in which to 
unsheathe the sword, like Moroni of old, and to cleanse the inside 
of the platter, and we would not wait for the decision of grand 
or traverse juries, but we would walk into you and completely 
use up every curse who will not do right.” ® 

Brigham Young had decided that the time had come to un- 
sheathe the sword, and for “judgment to be laid to the line and 
-tighteousness to the plummet.” [or this purpose he brought __ 
forth the most appalling theory of Mormon theology, the doc- } 
trine of blood atonement for sins. According to this theory; 
there exist certain sins for which atonement can only be had by- 
shedding the blood of the sinners. Among these sins were 
_ apostasy, unfaithfulness to the marriage obligations on the part, 
_ of the wife, and the shedding of innocent blood. In a sermon 
Brigham Young once explained the theory to the congregation, 
whom he hoped to reform: 


~“There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive 
forgiveness in this world, or in that which is to come, and if they 
had their eyes open to see their true condition, they would be per- 
fectly willing to have their blood spilt upon the ground, that the 
smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sins; 
and the smoking incense would atone for their sins, whereas, if 
such is not the case, they will stick to them and remain upon them 
in the spirit world. 

_. “T know, when you hear my brethren telling about cutting people 
off from the earth, that you consider it is strong doctrine; but it is 
to save them, not to destroy them. ... 


~8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 235. 


oO 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 403 


“T do know that there are sins committed, of such a nature that 
if the people did understand the doctrine of salvation, they would 
tremble because of their situation. And furthermore, I know that 
there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves, and the 
only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of 
their brethren to shed their blood, that the smoke thereof might 
ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled 
against them, and that the law might have its course. I will say 
further; I have had men come to me and offer their lives to atone 
for their sins. 

“Tt is true that the blood of the Son of God was shed for sins 
through the fall and those committed by men, yet men can commit 
sins which it can never remit. As it was in ancient days, so it is 
in our day; and though the principles are taught publicly from this 
stand, the people do not understand them; yet the law is precisely 


the same. There are sins that can be atoned for by an offering upon 
‘an altar, as in ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a 


lamb or a calf, or of turtle doves, cannot remit, but they must be 


_ atoned for by the blood of the man.” # 


“And in another sermon Brigham Young emphasized that true love 


was a love that would shed blood in order to insure for the loved 


\one eternal salvation: 


“All mankind,” he said, “love themselves, and let these principles 
be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood 
shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exalta- 
tion. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they 
have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding 
of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to 
shed their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant. He never told 
a man or woman to love their enemies in their wickedness, 
never. ... 

“T have seen scores and hundreds of people for whom there would 
have been a chance (in the last resurrection there will be) if their 
lives had been taken and their blood spilled on the ground as a 
smoking incense to the Almighty, but who are now angels to the 
devil, until our elder brother Jesus Christ raises them up—conquers 
death, hell, and the grave. -I have known a great many men who 
have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for 
exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been 
better for them. The wickedness and 1 ignorance of the nations for- 
bid this principle’s being i in full force, but the time will come hie 
the law of God will be in full force. 


4 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 53-54. 


A404 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“This is loving our neighbor as ourselves; if he neéds help, help 
him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood 
on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. Any of you who 
understand the principles of eternity, if you have sinned a sin re- 
quiring the shedding of blood, except the sin unto death, would not 
be satisfied nor rest until your blood should be spilled, that you 
might even gain that salvation you desire. That is the way to love 
mankind.” ® 


This was the height of fanatical Puritanism. The world to 
come, with its promise of eternal salvation and unsurpassable 
glory, was everything, and this world with its joys and amuse- 
ments was correspondingly insignificant. The doctrine of blood 
atonement was a terrible doctrine, and the fact that there are few 
instances of its actual practice, does not detract from its philo- 
sophical terror. Brigham Young was now beginning to lose 
- patience with mankind because it just would not be saved, accord- | 
ing to his plans, and he therefore gave free rein to his implicit 
and sincere belief that some men and women should be killed for 
their own good. The doctrine of blood atonement is illustrated- 
by a joke Brigham Young told in one of his sermons: 


“And I some expect that many will be brought into close places, 
as the Jew was by the Catholic priest. The Jew fell through the 
ice, and was about to drown, and implored the Catholic priest to 
pull him out. ‘I cannot,’ said the priest, ‘except you repent, and 
become a Christian.’ Said the Jew, ‘Pull me out this once.’ “Do 
you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Catholic Church?’ 
asked the priest. The Jew answered, ‘No, I do not.’ “Then you 
must stay there,’ and the priest held him under the water awhile. 
‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ now?’ ‘O yes, take me out.’ ‘Well,’ 
remarked the priest, ‘thank God that another sinner has repented; 
you are safe now, and while you are safe I will send you right to 
heaven’s gate,’ and he gave the Jew a push under the ice.” 


It was one of the limitations of Brigham Young’s mind that he 
himself always preferred a dead saint to a living sinner. 

That this doctrine of blood atonement created terror of con- 
science among the Saints and led to self-slaughter in the cause of 
righteousness, is illustrated by one story told by a former Mormon 
leader. One of the wives of a Mormon of Salt Lake City was 
unfaithful to him while he was on a mission in foreign lands. 


5 Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 219-220. 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 405 


When he returned, the Church was in the throes of the Reforma- 
tion, and his wife believed that she was doomed to lose the right 
to those children she had borne her husband in lawful wedlock, 
and that she would be separated from him and from them in 
eternity. She told her husband of her fears and of her sin, and 
he agreed with her that the fears were justified and the sin 
awful. She sat on her husband’s knee and embraced him as she 
had never done before, while, as he returned her kisses, he cut 
her throat and thereby sent her spirit to the gods in all its former 
purity.® : 

The Reformation caused Mormons to confess all the sins they 
could think of, but Brigham Young was forced to admit in a 
sermon that “there has been more confessing than forsaking.” 
Another effect of the Reformation was the death of its author. 
Jedediah M. Grant, who had suggested the Reformation to Brig- 
ham Young, was so busy baptizing Saints for the remission of 
their sins and therefore had to be in the water so much, that he 
contracted pneumonia and died in 1856, lamented by all the 
faithful. 

But the worst effect of the Reformation was its influence on 
the state of mind of the community. Murder became a righteous. 
duty at times, and against sinners and enemies it was no longer 
regarded as a sin. Obedience to the leaders of the Church was 
considered a supreme duty, and the entire Mormon popula- 
tion was keyed up to a pitch of fiery faith by the psychological 
effect of the terrifying doctrine of blood atonement, and by the 
excitement which a renewal of righteousness caused in their 
minds. 


II 


Parley P. Pratt, one of the leading members of the Church, 
and its most active missionary, was accused early in 1857 of 
seducing the wife of H. H. McLean, a merchant of San Fran- 
cisco. Pratt, according to McLean, wished to make Mrs. Mc- 
Lean the seventh Mrs. Pratt, and Mrs. McLean was willing. 
But Mr. McLean was not, and in order to prevent his wife from 
joining the Mormons, her husband had adopted the course which 
was most likely to throw her into their arms. He sent their 
children to her father’s house in New Orleans, where she quickly 


6 The Rocky Mountain Saints, by T. B. H. Stenhouse, pp. 469-470. 


406 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


followed, and by pretending to repent of her Mormon tendencies, 
succeeded in getting her children back again. As soon as'she had 
possession of them, she started for Utah. McLean pursued her. 
Meanwhile, Mrs. McLean had been corresponding with Parley 
Pratt, and Mr. McLean was looking for Mr. Pratt as well as for 
his wife and children. He intercepted a letter from Pratt to his 
wife, by which he discovered that they had an appointment to 
meet near Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Indian reservation. Mc- 
Lean followed and caught up with them. He brought legal action 
in Arkansas against Pratt, and great excitement was caused by 
the trial, in the course of which McLean introduced numerous , 
cipher letters written by his wife and by Pratt. It was with 
difficulty that the judge kept the mob from lynching Pratt. Mc- 
Lean became so enraged that he drew his pistol in the court room 
and threatened to shoot Pratt there. Pratt was declared innocent 
of McLeaxn’s charges against him and left town early in the morn- 
ing. McLean followed, and near Van Buren, Arkansas, on May 
14, 1857, he stabbed Pratt and killed him. A year before he 
was killed Parley Pratt had written an address which was deliv- 
ered before the territorial legislature of Utah on “Marriage and 
Morals in Utah,” in the course of which he approved with fervor 
the Bible penalties for adultery, which, he pointed out, consisted 
of stabbing or stoning the guilty party to death. 

This murder of one of their leaders enraged the Mormons, and 
they were disposed to have vengeance if possible. In September 
of 1857 a party of one hundred and thirty-six emigrants on their 
way from Arkansas to California passed through Utah. Those 
of the party who had not come from Arkansas were said to be 
from Missouri and Illinois, and the rumor was spread among the 
Mormons that these last were members of the mob that had mur- 
dered the Prophet Joseph Smith. As the emigrants passed 
through Utah, the Mormons were instructed to give them no aid, 
to sell them no provisions, and to adopt a negative hostility 
towards them in every way. At the time the army of the United 
States was on its way to Utah, and the Mormons were adopting 
an attitude of suspicious hostility towards all emigrants, but these 
who came directly from the state where Parley Pratt had just 
been killed, were regarded with special enmity, for the Mormons 
have never hesitated to attribute the sins of the fathers not only 
to the children, but also to the grandfathers, and even to the 
sisters, the cousins, and the aunts. © 





PARLEY P. PRATT HEBER C. KIMBALL 





JepEDIAH M. GRANT Orson PRATT 





MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 407 


The Mormons claimed that as these Arkansas emigrants made 
their way through Utah to the south they fought with Indians and 
poisoned wells with arsenic and cattle with strychnine. It has 
been established that some oxen died while these emigrants were 
in the neighborhood, but it was likely that they died of the poison- 
ous weeds which were prevalent in the deserts of southern Utah. 
There was no evidence that the emigrants had either arsenic or 
strychnine in their baggage. On September 3, 1857, the emi- 
grants arrived at Mountain Meadows. Mountain Meadows lay 
in a long valley. It was a level stretch of green seven miles long, 
entirely surrounded by hills and mountains, with a small gap at 
either end, leading out into the desert on one side and towards 
Jake Hamblin’s ranch on the other. A small stream ran through 
the meadows, and near this the enjigrants camped. 

At daybreak on Monday, September 7, as they were lighting 
their camp fires for breakfast, the emigrants were fired upon by 
Indians and white men dressed as Indians. More than twenty 
were killed and wounded, and the cattle were driven off by their 
assailants. The surviving emigrants barricaded themselves behind 
their waggons and prepared to withstand a siege. . The attacking 
party retired to the hills and shot down on the emigrants who 
showed their heads outside their entrenchment. Soon the Arkan- 
‘sas people began to suffer from lack of water, for it was im- 
possible to get any from the near-by stream until after dark, and 
then the risk of being shot in the attempt was great. 

After four days of siege, a waggon with a flag of truce ap- 
proached the emigrants’ corral. John D. Lee came to offer them 
protection if they would surrender their arms and ammunition. 
They consented to do this, after he had informed them that he 
was a Mormon and would take them to the nearest Mormon 
settlement, Cedar City, where they would be safe from the “In- 
dians” who had attacked them. All the weapons were then 
placed in one waggon, and the wounded and children were placed 
in special waggons. The Mormon troops whom Lee had brought 
with him then opened order, and the emigrants marched with 
Mormons on either side of them, first the women, and then the 
men. As soon as they had marched a short distance, the Mormon 
guards turned on the emigrants and shot every one of them dead. 
Meanwhile, Lee, with several assistants, had taken charge of the 
waggons with the wounded and the children. When they heard 
the guns of their companions, Lee and his assistants shot into 


408 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


the waggons of wounded and children. McCurdy, one of Lee’s 
assistants, approached a waggon containing sick and wounded, 
raised his rifle and said, ‘““O Lord, my God, receive their spirits, 
it is for thy Kingdom that I do this.” Thereupon he shot a man 
whose head was lying on another’s breast and killed both with 
one ball. Indians and Mormons joined Lee and killed the rest 
of the sick and wounded, after they had finished with those capa- 
ble of resistance. All except seventeen small children, who were 
too young to be able to describe the massacre, were killed. 

After the sick, the wounded, and the children had been killed, 
the Mormons took breakfast, and, having finished their meal, 
returned to bury the dead. But while the white men had been 
eating, the Indians had been stripping the bodies of men and 
women of their clothes and their valuables. The skulls of the 
emigrants had been battered in, and their scalps removed along 
with their clothes, so that naked and mutilated bodies lay strewn 
about the meadows in horrible disorder. Lee and his associates 
then told the Mormons under their command that they must tell 
no one, not even their wives, what had happened, and that if they 
were ever questioned concerning this massacre, they must at- 
tribute everything to the Indians. The bodies were then piled in 
heaps and covered with dirt, which the rain and the wolves soon 
removed. 

A few days before this massacre at Mountain Meadows a 
messenger had been sent to Brigham Young asking what the 
policy towards the emigrants should be. The messenger arrived 
in Cedar City again a few days after the massacre with an order 
from Brigham Young to allow the emigrants to pass through 
unmolested. The Mormon leaders of the southern district who 
had issued the orders for the massacre and carried out their 
execution, Isaac C. Haight, John M. Higbee, John D. Lee, and 
William C. Dame, were then worried about the righteousness of 
their action and its possible consequences. They sent Lee to 
report the massacre to Brigham Young, and to ask for his advice. 
Lee acted throughout, he claimed later in his confession, on the 
orders of Isaac C. Haight, who was his superior in the Church 
hierarchy, and who had promised him both celestial reward and 
temporal benefit if the emigrants were properly killed. Lee 
started on his ten days’ journey from Cedar City to Brigham 
Young’s office. He said later that as soon as he could see Brig- 
ham Young, he gave him all the details of the massacre, and that, 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 409 


“when he heard my story he wept like a child, walked the floor, 
and wrung his hands in bitter anguish. .. .’* When Lee had 
finished his story, he wrote later, Brigham Young said: 


“This is the most unfortunate affair that ever befell the Church. 
I am afraid of treachery among the brethren that were there. If 
any one tells this thing so that it will become public, it will work us 
great injury. I want you to understand now, that you are never 
to tell this again, not even to Heber C. Kimball. Jt must be kept a 
secret among ourselves. When you get home, I want you to sit 
down and write a long letter, and give me an account of the affair, 
charging it to the Indians. You sign the letter as Farmer to the 
Indians, and direct it to me as Indian Agent. I can then make use 
of such a letter to keep off all damaging and troublesome en- 
quiries.” § 


Brigham Young then added: “If only men had been killed, I 
would not have cared so much; but the killing of the women and 
children is the sin of it. I suppose the men were a hard set, but 
it is hard to kill women and children for the sins of the men. 
This whole thing stands before me like a horrid vision.” The 
next morning when Lee called on Brigham Young again, the 
Prophet and President said: 


“T have made that matter a subject of prayer. I went right to 
God with it, and asked Him to take the horrid vision from my sight, 
if it was a righteous thing that my people had done in killing those 
people at the Mountain Meadows. God answered me, and at once 
the vision was removed. I have evidence from God that He has 
overruled it all for good, and the action was a righteous one and 
well intended. The brethren acted from pure motives. The only 
trouble is they acted a little prematurely; they were a little ahead 
of time. I sustain you and all the brethren for what they did. All 
that I fear is treachery on the part of some one who took a part 
with you, but we will look to that.” 


For many years after the Mountain Meadows Massacre Brig- 
ham Young and John D. Lee were on terms of friendship. In 
his testimony before the Third District Court of Utah James 


7The Lee Trial! An Exposé of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, by the 
Salt Lake Daily Tribune Reporter, p. 9. 
8 Lee’s Mormonism Unveiled, pp. 252-253. 


410 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


McGuffie, a faithful Mormon, was asked: “What I want to get 
at is whether you know, of your own knowledge, that after that 
massacre John D. Lee continued to be on terms of friendship 
with the President of the Church?” “Oh, yes,’ he answered, 
“and got two more women after that: got two at a lick—an 
English girl; she died.”’ 

Brigham Young sent his report as Superintendent of Indian 
Affairs for Utah Territory to the Commissioner of Indian Af- 
fairs at Washington on January 6, 1858, and in it he summed 
up the Mountain Meadows Massacre with this explanatory state- 
ment: 


“On or about the middle of last September a company of 
emigrants traveling the southern route to California, poisoned the 
meat of an ox that died, and gave it to the Indians to eat, causing 
the immediate death of four of their tribe, and poisoning several 
others. This company also poisoned the water where they were 
encamped. This occurred at Corn Creek, fifteen miles south of 
Fillmore City. This conduct so enraged the Indians, that they 
immediately took measures for revenge. ... Lamentable as this 
case truly is, it is only the natural consequence of that fatal policy 
which treats the Indians like the wolves, or other ferocious beasts. 
I have vainly remonstrated for years with travelers against pur- 
suing so stticidal a policy, and repeatedly advised the Government 
of its fatal tendency. It is not always upon the heads of the in- 
dividuals who commit such crimes that such condign punishment is 
visited, but more frequently the next company that follows in their 
fatal path become the unsuspecting victims, though peradventure 
perfectly innocent.” 


Perhaps this explanation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre 
would have been accepted as the truth, but, unfortunately for the 
Mormon position, there existed those seventeen small children, 
who were believed to be living with the Indians who had mas- 
sacred their parents. Relatives and friends in Arkansas urged the 
federal government to search for these children, and in the course 
of the search it was found that the children were living with 
Mormons, and not with Indians. Further investigation led to the 
suspicion that the Mormons were involved in the massacre. Dr. 
J. Forney, successor to Brigham Young as Superintendent of 
Indian Affairs, gathered the children together, and he found that 
they ranged from three to seven years of age. They remembered 
only their first names, and that their fathers, mothers, brothers, 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 411 


and sisters had been killed. They were returned to relatives in 
Arkansas in June, 1859. 

Several years after the massacre a military detachment was sent 
to Mountain Meadows to bury the bones of the emigrants. Major 
Carlton, commander of this expedition, found the bones uncov- 
ered by wolves. After his men had buried them, they erected a 
monument, and on one of the rocks they cut the words, “Here lie 
the bones of 120 men, women, and children, from Arkansas, 
murdered on the toth day of September, 1857.” And upon a 
cross bar, they painted: ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and 
I will repay it.’ This monument was destroyed soon after the 
next visit of Brigham Young to that section of Utah. 

Meanwhile, John D. Lee and Brigham Young continued to be 
friends. Whenever Brigham Young and his large retinue visited 
Cedar City, Lee entertained them. Then, seventeen years after 
the massacre, Lee was suddenly cut off from the Church, and no 
explanation was offered for the action. Soon afterwards, on 
November 9, 1874, Lee was arrested and taken to Fort Cameron, 
Beaver County, Utah. When Lee was excommunicated, Brigham 
Young had informed his wives that they were at liberty to leave 
him, and eleven of them promptly did so. Judge Cradlebaugh, 
federal judge for Utah Territory, had held an investigation into 
the massacre two years after it was committed, but he was not 
able to get information sufficient to warrant indictments. It was 
not until a bill was passed authorizing federal officers in Utah 
to impanel jurors that any indictments could be returned by non- 
Mormon grand jurors. 

John D. Lee was tried for murder in July, 1875. The jury 
was made up of a majority of Mormons, and finally they failed 
to agree. In September, 1876, Lee was tried again, and this time 
the Church, which had supported him at the first trial, withdrew 
its support. The facts brought out at the first trial had aroused 
resentment throughout the country, and news and comment on 
the trial were printed in newspapers everywhere. Many editorial 
writers suggested that if Lee were acquitted, he should be lynched. 
The disagreement of the Mormon jury at the first trial also led 
newspapers to suggest that justice was impossible in Brigham 
Young’s stronghold. Brigham Young and the Church leaders 
came to the conclusion that it would be wise for the Church to 
withdraw any influence on the jurors at the second trial, and they 
offered up Lee as a sacrifice to justice. At his second trial Lee 


412 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to be 
shot at the scene of the massacre. 

While he was in prison awaiting execution, John D. Lee wrote 
his confessions, which he entrusted to his lawyer, W. W. Bishop, 
who published them some years after Lee’s death under the title, 
Mormonism Unveiled. “I once thought,” wrote Lee, “that I 
never could be induced to occupy the position that I now do, to 
expose the wickedness and corruption of the man whom I once 
looked upon as my spiritual guide, as I then considered Brigham © 
Young to be. Nothing could have compelled me to this course 
save an honest sense of the duty I owe myself, my God, the 
people at large, and my brethren and sisters who are treading the 
downward path that will lead them to irretrievable ruin, unless 
they retrace their steps and throw off the yoke of the tyrant, who 
has long usurped the right of rule that justly belongs to the son 
of Joseph, the Prophet.” This was a great change from Lee’s 
former attitude, which was described by one who knew him: “Lee 
is a good, kind-hearted fellow, who would share his last biscuit 
with a fellow-traveler on the plains, but at the next instant, if 
Brigham Young said so, he would cut that fellow-traveler’s 
throat.” John D. Lee had decided to betray Brigham Young, 
because Brigham Young had betrayed John D. Lee by delivering 
him as a sacrifice to save the name of the Church. This sudden 
thrust into the dungeons to await the lions of the law opened 
Lee’s eyes to past incidents. He now saw without the eye of 
faith, but with the eye of reason, and the change in the point of 
view made him realize the significance of many events which he 
had previously accepted with unquestioning confidence. 

In September, 1857, according to Lee’s own story, he was sent 
for by the Mormon military commander of southern Utah, Isaac 
C. Haight. The two men met at Haight’s house and went from 
there to the Old Iron Works near Cedar City, where they spent 
the night under the stars talking. 


“After we got to the Iron Works,” wrote Lee, “Haight told me 
all about the train of emigrants. He said (and I then believed every 
word that he spoke, for I believed it was an impossible thing for 
one so high in the Priesthood as he was, to be guilty of falsehood) 
that the emigrants were a rough and abusive set of men. That they 
had, while traveling through Utah, been very abusive to all the 
Mormons they met. - That they had insulted, outraged, and ravished 
many of the Mormon women. That the abuses heaped upon the 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 413 


people by the emigrants during their trip from Provo to Cedar 
City, had been constant and shameful; that they had burned fences 
and destroyed growing crops; that at many points on the road they 
had poisoned the water, so that all people and stock that drank of 
the water became sick, and many had died from the effects of 
poison. These vile Gentiles publicly proclaimed that they had the 
very pistol with which the Prophet Joseph was murdered, and had 
threatened to kill Brigham Young and all of the Apostles. That 
when in Cedar City they said they would have friends in Utah who 
would hang Brigham Young by the neck until he was dead, before 
snow fell again in the Territory! They also said that Johnston was 
coming, with his army, from the East, and they were going to 
return from California with soldiers, as soon as possible, and would 
then desolate the land, and kill every damned Mormon man, woman 
and child that they could find in Utah.” 


Haight told Lee that it had been decided to arm the Indians, 
to give them food and ammunition, and to set them upon the 
party of wicked emigrants. He did not say who had decided this, 
but he pointed out that Brigham Young had declared martial law 

fin the Territory because of the advancing expedition of United 

“States troops, and that therefore these emigrants had no right to 
travel through the Territory without a pass from Brigham Young. 
Haight then said that it was Lee’s job to round up the Indians, 
and to tell them that the Mormons were at war with the ‘“Meri- 
cats,’ which was the Indian nickname for Americans. “I asked 
him,” wrote Lee, “if it would not have been better to first send 
to Brigham Young for instructions, and find out what he thought 
about the matter.” “No,” answered Haight, “that is unnecessary, 
we are acting by orders.” 

After he had received these instructions from Haight, Lee 
joined the Indians, and he found that they had already attacked 
the emigrants. He camped with them, and he wrote of his experi- 
ence the first night: “I spent one of the most miserable nights 
there that I ever passed in my life. I spent much of the night in 
tears and at prayer. I wrestled with God for wisdom to guide 
me. I asked for some sign, some evidence that would satisfy 
me that my mission was of Heaven, but I got no satisfaction 
from God.” On the following day Lee and a detachment of Mor- 
mons and Indians made the truce with the emigrants, and killed 
them. The night before the final deception and murder of the 
emigrants Lee and his Mormon companions knelt in a circle, with 


414 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


elbows touching, and prayed for divine aid and guidance. When 
they arose, Major Higbee said, “I have the evidence of God’s 
approval of our mission. It is God’s will that we carry out our 
instructions to the letter.’ “It helps a man a great deal in a 
fight,” Lee wrote in his confession, “‘to know that God is on his 
side.” . 

It is probable that the direction of this massacre was the work 
of Isaac C. Haight, who was the leader of the Church in the dis-. 
trict where it took place, and who used John D. Lee to carry it 
out. The men and women of this southern district of Utah had 
been aroused to fear and antagonism by the impending arrival 
of United States troops, whose purpose they did not know, and 
by the rumors circulated concerning the depredations of the — 
emigrants. The state of mind in the neighborhood of Mountain 
Meadows is illustrated admirably in a sermon which George A. 
Smith delivered a few days after the massacre took place, but 
before news of it had reached Salt Lake City. Smith had just 
returned from a trip to Cedar City and the Mountain Meadows 
district. Later it was said that he bore orders from Brigham 
Young for the massacre, but there was no evidence for this accu- 
sation. Smith visited Parowan, Iron County, where he found the 
militia preparing for active operations. ‘“They had assembled 
together,” he said, “under the impression that their country was 
about to be invaded by an army from the United States, and that 
it was necessary to make preparation by examining each other’s 
arms, and to make everything ready by preparing to strike in any 
direction and march to such places as might be necessary in the 
defense of their homes. . . . They were willing at any moment 
to touch fire to their homes, and hide themselves in the moun- 
tains, and to defend their country to the very last extremity.” 
Wherever he went, George A. Smith found the same preparations. 
“They had heard,” he said of the people of Penter, “they were 
going to have an army of 600 dragoons come down from the 
East on to the town. The Major seemed very sanguine about the 
matter. I asked him, if this rumor should prove true, if he was 
not going to wait for instructions. He replied, There was no 
time to wait for any instructions; and he was going to take his 
battalion and use them up before they could get down through the 
kanyons; for, said he, if they are coming here, they are coming 
for no good.” This spirit led George A. Smith to conclude: 
‘There was only one thing that I dreaded, and that was a spirit 


MOUNTAIN. MEADOWS MASSACRE ALS 


in the breasts of some to wish that their enemies might come and 
give them a chance to fight and take vengeance for the cruelties 
that had been inflicted upon us in the States... . But I am per- 
fectly aware that in all the settlements I visited in the south, 
Fillmore included, one single sentence is enough to put every man 
in motion. In fact, a word is enough to set in motion every man, 
or set a torch to every building, where the safety of this people 
is jeopardized.” ® 

The emigrants from Arkansas and Missouri had the misfortune 
to pass through these settlements at the worst possible moment 
for their safety. It required only the rumor that some of them 
were the murderers of Joseph Smith and that all of them were 
the enemies of the Mormons and friends of the oncoming United 
States forces, to work up into a frenzy of recrimination those 
Mormons who were thirsting for revenge and anxious to protect 
themselves from dangers which they were anticipating. 

/ Brigham Young was never accused, even by John D. Lee, of 
\.direct ‘responsibility for the massacre at Mountain Meadows. For 
Lee’s second trial Brigham Young sent a written deposition of 
his testimony and examination by a lawyer, for he claimed that 
his health and his age—he was then seventy-five years old—pre- 
vented him from traveling to Beaver County, where the trial was 
held. In this examination, which was not admitted for the de- 
fense at the first trial, but which was introduced and admitted for 
the prosecution at the second, Brigham Young was asked: “Did 
John D. Lee report to you at any time after this massacre what 
had been done at that massacre, and if so, what did you reply to 
him in reference thereto?’ He answered: “Within some two or 
three months after the massacre he called at my office and had 
much to say with regard to the Indians, their being stirred up to 
anger and threatening the settlements of the whites, and then 
commenced giving an account of the massacre. I told him to 
stop, as from what I had already heard by rumor, I did not wish 
my feelings harrowed up with a recital of detail.” But Brigham 
Young’s feelings were not easily “harrowed up,” and it was 
usually his desire to know the details of everything that Hes 
pened in his demesne. 

Brigham Young shares in the responsibility for this massacre 

/ indirectly. He had frequently talked against Gentiles in the’ 

\pulpit, and particularly against California emigrants. He had 


9 Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 221-225. 


416 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


also caused his people to believe that a man who killed a Gentile 
or an apostate Mormon was no more than the instrument of God, 
and that his responsibility was no greater than the knife which 
was used to slit the throat or the bullet that was fired at the 
victim. In the excitement of the time of stress Brigham Young’s 
assistants interpreted his general philosophy literally, and their 
assistants, the common people, were subject to pressure that kept 
them obedient to their leaders. Nephi Johnson, who was in the 
party of Mormons who executed the Mountain Meadows Mas- 
sacre, testified at Lee’s trial : 


“What do you mean by your evidence, where you were asked by 
Mr. Howard a question, and you answered that you would not have 
gone to the Meadows if you had known what was to be done? 
Answer: That is, not if I could help it. 

“State whether you were under any compulsion. Answer: I 
didn’t consider it was safe for me to object. 

“Explain what you mean, that is what I want. Where was the 
danger—who was the danger to come from if you objected—from 
Haight or those around him—from Indians, or from the emigrants? 
Answer: From the military officers. 

“Where? Answer: At Cedar City. 

“Was Haight one of those military officers? Answer: Yes, sir. 

“You thought it would not be safe for you to refuse, had you 
any reasons to fear danger—had any persons ever been injured for 
not obeying, or anything of that kind? Answer: I don’t want to 
answer. | 

“It is necessary to the safety of the man I am defending, and 
I therefore insist upon an answer. Had any person ever been in- 
jured for not obeying, or anything of that kind? Answer: Yes, sir; 
they had.” 2° 


When John D. Lee was finally arrested for the Mountain Mead- 
ows Massacre, he was found hiding in a chicken pen on his farm 
at Panguitch, Utah. He was forced out of his hiding-place by the 
marshal with some difficulty. He was calm, and asked to see the 
pistol that had been pointed at his head, remarking that it was the 
queerest-looking pistol he ever did see. His wives, however, were 
frantic with excitement, and William Stokes, the deputy marshal 
who arrested Lee, sent for a pitcher of wine to calm the women 
and refresh the soldiers. They all drank, and one of Lee’s 


10 Mormonism Unveiled, p. 349. 


MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE 417 


daughters, as she raised the pitcher, said: “Here’s hoping that 
father will get away from you, and that if he does, you will not 
catch him again till hell freezes over.” “Drink hearty, Miss,” 
answered Stokes. The rumor was circulated that an attempt 
would be made by some of Lee’s army of sixty-four children to 
rescue him from the law, and he was guarded with extraordinary 
precautions. 

Lee was led to his execution by a strong guard of soldiers and 
a cortege of newspaper correspondents and lawyers. In the 
twenty years since the massacre the green valley of Mountain 
Meadows had changed to an arid plain. The pine boards for 
Lee’s coffin were transported with the execution party, and the 
carpenters began hammering them into a coffin, while Lee sat a 
short distance away watching them with intense interest. A 
photographer took some pictures of the scene. Lee asked to talk 
to the photographer and said to him: “I want to ask a favor of 
you; | want you to furnish my three wives each a copy. Send 
them to Rachel A., Sarah C., and Emma B.”’ Those were the only 
faithful wives left of the nineteen. The photographer promised 
to carry out this request, and then Lee posed for the photographs. 
He addressed the group of people about him, assuring them that 
he was innocent in intent, and that he had only obeyed the orders 
of his superiors and was the victim at a sacrifice. He said that 
he still believed in the divinity of Joseph Smith, but that he no 
longer believed in the virtue of Brigham Young. Then his eyes 
were blindfolded, and he sat on his own coffin. A Methodist 
minister delivered a fervent prayer, to which Lee listened atten- 
tively. “TI ask one favor of the guards,” he said, as soon as the 
prayer was finished, “spare my limbs and center my heart.” He 
then straightened up, still sitting on his coffin, and said: “Let 
them shoot the balls through my heart. Don’t let them mangle 
my body.’ The marshal assured him that the aim would be 
accurate. The command was given, “Ready, aim, fire.” Five 
soldiers fired, and Lee fell back on the top of his own coffin with- 
out a moan, as the echo of the shots reverberated through the 
surrounding hills. 


Chapter XII 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 


I 


AFTER the Mormons had spent the first ten critical years of their 
existence in Utah without conquest by the elements or extirpation 
by their opponents, the next twenty years of Brigham Young's 


' life and the life of the Church were spent in keeping the com- 


munity a community. Brigham Young reiterated in the pulpit \ 
thé promise which veiled a threat, that only by clinging together | 
in a righteous community could the people hope to be saved when | 
the Son of Man should reappear and the Saints inherit the earth. | 
If they believed in their religion at all, Mormons believed that 
they were the last chosen people, and that this time God meant 
to adhere to His choice. They would inherit the earth and turn 
_it into a golden, glorious kingdom of God. Believing this, it 
was impossible for Mormons to leave for California and Oregon 
without first losing all their faith. 

In his later years one of Brigham Young’s favorite verses cee 
the Bible was from the revelation received by John on the Isle 
of Patmos: “Come out of her, O my people, be not partakers of 
her sins, lest ye receive her plagues, for her sins have reached_ 
unto heaven.” He continually urged his people to forsake Baby- 


-lon and her ways, and especially not to import either her manners 


| or her merchandise. And as he grew older his insistence upon | 
| home industry and thrift grew greater, until it assumed the pro-_~ 


_ portions of a mania. In his opinion the most wicked of all evils 


, was idleness and the most stultifying of all indulgences was 


; 
- 


leisure. He favored pleasure in the form of recreation, because 
he realized that it was necessary in order that men’s minds might 
be capable of good work, but the cornerstone of Mormonism was 


. work, and the diversions were merely ornaments. With such a 


temperament it was inevitable that he should succeed in the man- 


agement of a community knit together by a compelling religious 
418 


A COOPERATIVE ZION » 419 


fervor. There was no place in his economy for the artistic tem- 
perament, which thrives on leisure and is actuated by whim, but 
the character of his communicants and the nature of their prob- 
lems had very little need for the artistic temperament. 
~~ The impression that one gathers from reading Brigham\ 
_ Young’s extempore sermons is that he was preoccupied with the \ 
_ financial, economic, civic, and commercial needs of his flock to a / 
\much greater extent than he was with their spiritual welfare. He 
always placed the latter far above temporal needs and desires, but 
the spiritual details, such as dogmas, doctrine, and revelations he 
left to the memory of Joseph Smith, the Seer and Prophet, and 
to less busy elders whose minds were inclined that way. His 
sermons, it is true, are filled with gospel exhortations and with 
scriptural illustrations, but these he used mainly to. serve his 
arguments for confidence in his administration and as propaganda 
for converts, of which the undeveloped territory was always in 
great need. The subjects of most of the sermons are practical 
problems which even Saints cannot ignore. He eloquently re- 
/ buked the Saints for not paying their tithes to the Church; he 
_ told them how to protect themselves and their farms from the 
_ Indians; he urged them not to be wasteful of the things God had 
“given them, for, “If a man is worth millions of bushels of wheat 
and corn, he is not wealthy enough to suffer his servant girl to 
sweep a single kernel of it into the fire, let it be eaten by some- 
thing, and pass again into the earth, and thus fulfil the purpose 
for which it grew.” 

Brigham Young’s problem was to maintain enough public spirit 
in a communistic order of society to make every man willing to 
help another. The Mormon community was not communistic in 
the modern sense of the term, for every man was allowed to get 
and to keep as much as he could, but at the same time it was neces- 
sary to provide for the needs of the whole, and it was Brigham 
Young’s job to make his Saints see the value of contributing to 
the community. That was the most difficult job in the com- 
munity. Rea 

It was frequently assumed during his lifetime that Brigham 
Young profited tremendously himself by the wealth of the Church 
which he did so much to increase, and the implication was that 
he was therefore a fraud. It is true that when he died he left 

“to his seventeen surviving wives and forty-four surviving children 
2 Fortune of about $2,000,000. During the last years of his life 


420 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


he lived in comfort, without extravagance, and in ease, without 
luxury. His policies were profitable to him personally, but they 
were proportionately profitable to every man in the community, 
and since he formulated and carried out those policies, he was, 
according to the capitalistic standards by which he was judged, 
entitled to an even greater personal reward than he accumulated. 
He gathered his own wealth by personally dealing in cattle and 
agriculture. He gave himself concessions in lumber from the_ 
cafions, and he worked those concessions. He drew no salary 
- from the wealth of the community, like an ordinary king, and it 
must always be remembered that in the eyes of his followers he 
was not only a king, but a prophet and a priest as well. is 
~genius for economic organization was worth to his community 
in dollars and cents whatever he wished to ask for it, but he 
preferred to exercise it for himself as well as for the Church, 
and he earned his own living while aiding his people to earn 
theirs. = 
_-=Brigham Young not only made his people prosperous, but he 
forced them to conserve their prosperity. He insisted that in a 
community which was entirely dependent upon its own resources 
for food and sustenance waste was intolerable; but even in the 
“kingdom of heaven waste would have been intolerable to Brigham 
Young, for he was the kind of man who, when he saw a pin, 
invariably picked it up. This habit of mind occasionally degen- 
erated into stinginess, as when, in the pulpit, he complained bit- 
terly that the carpenters he employed robbed him by taking home 
with them in the pockets of their working clothes a few of his 
nails. 

When Brigham Young organized charity, he preferred to do so 
by means of work. He explained his aim once in a sermon: 


“Some have wished me to explain why we built an adobe wall 
around this city. Are there any Saints who stumble at such things? 
Oh, slow of heart to understand and believe. I build walls, dig 
ditches, make bridges, and do a great amount and variety of labor 
that is of little consequence only to provide ways and means for 
sustaining and preserving the destitute. I annually expend hun- 
dreds and thousands of dollars almost solely to furnish employment 
to those in want of labor. Why? I have potatoes, flour, beef, and 
other articles of food, which I wish my brethren to have; and it is 
better for them to labor for those articles, so far as they are able 
and have opportunity, than to have them given to them. They work, 


f 
{ 


\ 


\ 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 421 


and I deal out provisions, often when the work does not profit me. 

“I say to all grunters, grumblers, whiners, hypocrites, and syco- 
phants, who snivel, crouch, and crawl around the most contemptible 
of all creatures for a slight favor, Should it enter my mind to dig 
down the Twin Peaks, and I set men to work to do so, it is none 
of your business, neither is it the business of all earth and hell, 
provided I pay the laborers their wages. I am not to be called in 
question as to what I do with my funds, whether I build high walls 
or low walls, garden walls or city walls; and if I please, it is my 
right to pull down my walls to-morrow. If any one wishes to 
apostatize upon such grounds, the quicker he does so the better; and 
if he wishes to leave the Territory, but is too poor to do so, I will 
assist him to go. Weare much better off without such characters.” + 


Brigham Young did not ask for this authority, however, with- 
out the knowledge that his people knew he deserved it. “You 
know my life;” he once told them, “there is not a person in this 
Church and kingdom but what must acknowledge that gold and 
silver, houses and lands, &c., do multiply in my hands. There is 
not an individual but what must acknowledge that I am as good 
a financier as they ever knew, in all things that I put my hands to.” 
But he took very little credit for all this to himself. ‘What do 
you suppose,” he once asked the congregation, “I think when I 
hear people say, “Oh, see what the Mormons have done in the 
mountains. It is Brigham Young. What a head he has got! 
What power he has got! How well he controls the people!’ The 
people are ignorant of our true character. It is the Lord that has 
done this. It is not any one man or set of men; only as we are 
led and guided by the spirit of truth. It is the oneness, wisdom, 
power, knowledge, and providences of God; and all that we can 
say is, we are his servants and handmaids, and let us serve him 
with an undivided heart.” But it must be admitted that Brigham 
Young gave the Lord a very powerful helping hand. 

It was wise of Brigham Young to disclaim modestly the credit 
for the Mormon achievement, not only because the disclaimer 
took away some of the responsibility for mishaps, but also because 
it enabled him to insist, as he always did, that things spiritual and 
_things temporal were one and indissoluble; thus he was able td, 
“control the most minute temporal affairs of his people by insist-\ 
ing that they were interwoven with the spiritual dominion of | 
which he was placed in charge. The Church was organized com~" 


1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 8, p. II, 


422 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


_ pactly under the control of the President. The Territory was 
divided into stakes of Zion, over which there was a president, 
appointed by Brigham Young, and approved by the people over 
whom he was to exercise supervision. This stake usually cor- 
responded to a county, except where the county was too populous, 
_when several stakes were formed. Each stake was divided into 
wards, and over each ward there was a bishop, who was also_ 
selected by Brigham Young. In that way Brigham Young had | 
control of every district of his domain, because he had his own 
major-domo in each district. This bishop was in charge of all | 
_ the families of his ward, and through him Brigham Young was | 
_ able to know the exact social, political, economic, and spiritual 

- condition of every member of every Mormon family, if he so 

\ desired. The extent of this control is admirably illustrated by the 
‘report of a ward teacher to his ward bishop: 


“Brother Brown and I visited Block Number Seven, spending two 
evenings in making the round. We found Sister Hagreen first-rate. 
She has had a bad cold, but is gradually improving. Brother and Sis- 
ter Johnson we found in good health. Brother Sorenson’s boy has a 
broken leg and he has been laid off work for two weeks. Brother 
Sorenson had a letter from his son Henry, who is on a mission in 
Australia, asking for $10 to assist in building a meeting house. I 
think we should furnish the money. Sister Knowles is getting very 
feeble. She is nearly ninety years old, and needs a sack of potatoes 
and flour. A lady living in the middle of the block—recently moved 
in—has a baby, a little boy. He should be named. Everything on 
our block is in good shape and the Saints in fine spirit, though 
inclined to shirk meetings.” ? 


Sir Richard Burton wrote that the Mormon polity was based 
upon “the fact that liberty is to mankind in mass, a burden far 
heavier than slavery.”’ The Mormons had each an oral vote, that 
is, they were asked at the semi-annual conferences to sustain their 
leaders by raising their hands, and to oppose them just as pub- 
licly. “His poor single vote,’ wrote Burton, “from which even 
the sting of the ballot has been withdrawn, gratifies the dignity 
of the man, and satisfies him with the autocracy which directs him 
in the way he should go. He has thus all the harmless pleasure 
of voting, without the danger of injuring himself by his vote.” 


2 World’s Work, vol. 5, p. 2803, Dec. 1902. 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 423 


This Sir Richard Burton found superior to the democratic method 
of freeing “mankind from king and kaiser,” and subjecting them 
“to snobs and mobs.” “I know no form of, rule superior to that 
of Great Salt Lake City,” concluded Burton; but, perhaps, he 
would have found Brigham Young’s domination oppressive at 
times if he had been born a Mormon and forced thereby to live 
under its minute dictates. | 

Such a system of government placed enormous responsibility \ 
upon Brigham Young, who was its first autocrat. His position 
was complicated still further, for besides being a Moses to his 
people, he was also a self-appointed Solomon, and he sat in judg- 
ment on the cases of their petty quarrels, which he insisted they 
, should bring before the Church tribunals rather than the state 
‘courts. The plaintiff and the defendant appeared with their wit- 
nesses before the president of their stake and his twelve coun- 
cilors. Prayer was offered up, and God’s aid was asked in favor 
of justice. The case was stated by the parties to it, the wit- 
nesses were heard, and the councilors decided. Then prayer was 
offered up again, the adversaries shook hands, and there were no 
costs. 

Brigham Young hated lawyers, and tried to do everything 
possible to make their trade negligible in Utah. He made his 
people afraid of lawyers by insisting upon the dishonesty and 
trouble fomenting characteristics of men of that profession. The 
dignity of the law appeared to him an amusing sham: 


> 
“Some men will go into court and spend five hundred dollars and 
feel as nicely about it as possible, even when their case has not 
been adjudicated as justly as a sensible ‘Mormon’ boy, ten years 
old, would do it. And yet, when they know this fact full well, they 
will spend their time, day after day, and their means with seeming 
contentment, saying to themselves, ‘Oh, if we can only go into the 
court, and address the court, and say, may it please the court, may 
it please your honor, may it please you, gentlemen of the jury, O, 
how joyous we shall be—we shall feel as though we were men of 
some importance, if we can only get up and strut and splutter be- 
fore a court... Even when merely a judge is sitting there, like a 
bean on the end of a pipe stem, who would be flipped off should a 
grain of good sense happen to strike him, how big he feels while 
sitting there for days to adjudicate a case that should not require 
five minutes.” * 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 326. 


424. BRIGHAM YOUNG 


For those who loved the processes of justice in themselves — 
rather than the ends which they were designed to serve, Brigham 
Young had the greatest contempt. While court was being held 
in February, 1856, Brigham Young noticed a large number of 
Mormons lounging about the court house, waiting for they knew 
not what. He sent one of his clerks to take all their names, and 
he sent them on missions, some to grow cotton in Los Vegas, 
others to make settlements in unoccupied territory, and others to 
convert the heathen in the Sandwich Islands. 
~~ Brigham Young’s conception of his own divine authority is 
illustrated by a comparison he made between the latter days and 
those of Moses: “The Ark, containing the covenant—or the Ark 
of the Covenant in the days of Moses, containing the sacred 
records, was moved from place to place in a cart. And so sacred 
was that Ark, if a man stretched forth his hand to steady it, when 
the cart jostled, he was smitten, and died. And would to God 
that all who attempt to do the same in this day, figuratively 
speaking, might share the same fate. And they will share it 
sooner or later, if they do not keep their hands and tongues, too, 
in their proper places, and stop dictating the order of the Gods 
of the Eternal Worlds.” 

_- Brigham Young maintained that nothing should be done with- 
“ out his advice and permission. When a man decided to enter a 
_ certain business, he was expected to consult Brigham Young be- 
‘fore he took action. When a ball was planned, his permission 

‘was necessary, and before the invitations were issued the list of 
- guests was submitted for his approval. Before the married men 
courted additional wives, they were supposed to consult him on 
their choice, and the young men were taught that before they 
_ made love to specific young women, it was their duty to get the 
' permission of Brother Brigham. The symbol of the Church was 
__a lugubrious and ominous All-Seeing Eye, with the motto be- 
neath, ‘Holiness to the Lord.” That eye was, for all practical 
purposes, the eye of Brigham Young; he was familiarly known 
* to some of the Mormons as “the Old Boss.’ Heber Kimball once 
said in a sermon, “If brother Brigham tells me to do a thing, it 

is the same as though the Lord told me to do it.” 
~~ Brigham Young’s word with Heber Kimball was the final word 
on all subjects, and he was not by any means the meekest of the 
Mormons. Thomas Bullock, Leo Hawkins, and a few others were 
talking one day with Heber Kimball in the church offices about 


: 
: 
: 


A COOPERATIVE ZION Ari ar hy 


the Resurrection. One of the brethren wanted to know whether, 
when the body came forth from the grave, any hole would be 
left in the ground. “No,” said Heber Kimball, “not at all, the 
atoms will be reunited, and they won’t leave no hole.” He began 
to elaborate on this theory, when Brigham Young walked in. 
The question was referred to him, and he said: “Why, yes, cer- 
tainly it will. Christ is the pattern, you know; and he had to 
have the stone rolled away from the sepulcher, and that left the 
hole visible, for did not the soldiers see it?” “Brother Brig- 
ham,” said Heber Kimball, “that is just my opinion.” When) 


' science or art conflicted with the views of Brigham Young, it was | 


the earnest opinion of the leaders of the Church that the theories 


_ of science or art must be altered or abandoned. Al 


—.. Brigham Young felt no sense of responsibility to anybody but 


God. ““No man need judge me,” he once told the people. “You 


' know nothing about it, aiheties I am sent or not; furthermore, _ 
. it is none of your business, only to listen with open ears to what_~ 


“is taught you, and serve God with an undivided heart.” And he 


justified this unbounded confidence in himself and in God by 
references to the past achievements of the partnership. It was 
also Brigham Young’s contention that the Saints’ money was not 
their own, but that, in the last analysis, it belonged to God, for 
had not God by his bounteous blessings contributed the means 
for its accumulation? Therefore, when God needed money, 
through the agency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 
Saints, it was the duty of the faithful to give back to Him what 
He had given to them. In this way Brigham Young made taxes) 
a tenet of the faith. Not only was the Lord entitled to a tenth 
of the possessions of the Saints, but He was also entitled to their 
personal services on public works, when His representative, Brig- 
ham Young, issued the order. 

But in spite of all his sermons it was sometimes difficult for 
Brigham Young to collect the Lord’s money. The Saints regarded 
their tithing obligations much as the average man regards his 
income tax, as something to submit to only under the strictest 
compulsion. As there was no law compelling them to give one- 
tenth of their income to the Church, but merely a church doctrine, 


‘it-was sometimes difficult to collect in full. Brigham Young, by* \ 


( ‘the threat of damnation, was able to collect a large part of the 


\tithes. 


There was practically no one in Utah who realized fully hat 


426 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Brigham Young was trying to do. For his own people he had 


to couch all his ideas in a religious mold, which he was able to 
do with sincerity, because he believed in God, and he believed in 
Joseph Smith. It was impossible, however, to convert the Gen- 
tiles, and especially the federal officials, to the idea of a benevolent 
despotism, because for them it was not benevolent, and they there- 


fore saw no reason why it should be despotic. By ruthless and’ 
vigorous measures of control Brigham Young was successful in 
operating his cooperative community. For a time it looked as if 


he would be defeated, but he countered every attack with one 
more powerful of his own. When isolation was broken and 


business expanded, changing the community from purely agri- | 
cultural to industrial as well, more powerful forces, those of | 


economics, threatened Brigham Young’s control. 


II 


Isaiah had once said, “A great highway shall be cast up,” and, 
upon another occasion, “They shall come with speed swiftly.” 
When the Union Pacific Railway was nearing completion, the 
Mormons recalled these sayings and looked with satisfaction on 
their. approaching fulfilment. The Mormons, in spite of their 
desire for isolation, had realized that sooner or later there would 
be a railroad across the continent, and they also had realized 
the great commercial advantage such an enterprise would be to 
them. As early as 1852 they had sent a petition to Congress 
urging the construction of a railroad to the shores of the Pacific, 
but Congress was busy with slavery, and later with the Civil 
War. As soon as the gold rush caused him to realize that the 
Mormons would not be the only inhabitants of the western quar- 
ter of the United States, Brigham Young planned to take financial 
advantage of the presence of their neighbors. When he found» 


_that compact, self-sufficient isolation was impossible, Brigham | 


Young decided upon a course of economic conquest, for he knew 


well that the way to political salvation in the United States was _ 
through economic strength, and he therefore concentrated upon / 


making Utah a prosperous part of the country in which the 
Mormons were forced by fate to live. Had he maintained a 
fanatic desire for isolation in the face of natural developments, 
the Mormons, like the Indians, would have been swept into dis- 
integration and death. But Brigham Young was a Yankee him- 


} 
Pp 


=, 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 427 


self, and he began to fight the oncoming horde with their own 
weapons. , 

Statesmen in Washington who could think of no other way if 
solving the annoying problem of polygamy relied on the Pacific 
railroad, by its penetration of the Mormon isolation and the 
permeation of the community with Gentiles, to solve the problem 
for them. The railroad, however, had run enough trains to go 
around the world several times before polygamy was finally abol- 
ished. Brigham Young had once remarked concerning these 
Congressional hopes that he would not give much for a eee 
that could not stand the advent of a railroad. : 

Brigham Young set about getting contracts for the constrice. | 
tion of the part of the railroad in and near Utah, and he made a | 
_ great profit from the construction of the few hundred miles of 
\_ railroad which were built by laborers under his control. On 
January 10, 1870, a grand celebration was held in Utah to com- 
memorate the completion of the railway as far as that Territory. 
The last spike was hammered in with due ceremony, and the 
railroad was dedicated to God. A song immortalized the con- 
struction of the Utah portion of the Union Pacific in these words: 


“At the head of great Echo, the railway’s begun, 
The Mormons are cutting and grading like fun; 
They say they’ll stick to it until it’s complete— 
When friends and relations they’re hoping to meet. 


“Hurrah, hurrah, the railroad’s begun, 
Three cheers for the contractor; his name’s Brigham Young. 
Hurrah, hurrah, we’re honest and true, 
And if we stick to it, it’s bound to go through. 


“Now there’s Mr. Reed, he’s a gentleman too— 
He knows very well what the Mormons can do. 
He knows they will earn every cent of their pay, 
And are just the right boys to construct a railway.” 


Soon after the railroad was completed, parties of senators) 
began to pour into Salt Lake City to see what Mormonism was | 
\ like. Lady lecturers followed the senators, and they spent a week | 
in Utah gathering information for anti-polygamous lectures, 

which they delivered with success in their home towns. Editors, 
clergymen, and English writers followed, and then came bank 


428 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


presidents and railroad officials, who investigated the resources of 
the Territory and found them to be great. For many years Salt 

Lake City became a Palace of the Freaks, and many visitors on 

their way to the climate of California from that of the East 

stopped over to look at the strange people. And the strangest 

of all was Brigham Young, the number of whose wives and the 

extent of whose possessions were so grossly exaggerated. People 

boasted that they had seen him in his tall black “‘stove-pipe” hat, 

and his quaint black cape. A legend of his personality gradually 

grew up from passing glimpses of his physical person, and he 
became a national figure of monstrous proportions, which still 
' exists in the imaginations of most people to whom his name is’ 
\.mentioned. When Barnum visited Salt Lake City soon after the 
completion of the railroad, Brigham Young asked him how much 

he would give to exhibit him in New York and the eastern cities. 

“Well, Mr. President,’ Barnum said, “I'll give you half the re- 

ceipts, which I will guarantee shall be $200,000 per year, for I 

consider you the best show in America.” “Why didn’t you secure 

me years ago when I was of no consequence?” asked Brigham 

Young. “Because you would not have ‘drawn’ at that time,” 

Barnum answered. | 

The telegraph had already been constructed in Utah, and Brig- 
ham Young organized the Deseret Telegraph Company, with 
himself as president. He also organized and constructed the 
Utah Railroad for intrastate communication. He was not always 
successful, however, in his commercial enterprises. The first 
attempt he made to set up a beet sugar factory is said to have cost 
the Church $60,000, and the Cottonwood Canal was an unsuc- 
cessful and costly attempt to make water run uphill. 

This change in the economic aspect of the community life made 
Brigham Young cling more desperately than ever to his economic 
theory. He was still insistent upon the principle of home manu- 
facture in preference to importation, and he urged its practice 
even when a rule of living laid down by the Church was thereby 
violated. The Saints were not supposed to chew or to smoke 
tobacco, but they did so. ‘We, the Latter-day Saints,” Brigham 
Young once said in a sermon, “care but little about tobacco; but 
as ‘Mormons,’ we use a great deal.’”’ He then estimated that 
$60,000 went out of the Territory annually to supply the people 
with tobacco. ‘Tobacco can be raised here as well as it can be 
raised in any other place,” he said. “It wants attention and care. 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 429 


If we use it, let us raise it here. I recommend for some man to 
go to raising tobacco.” Although he used tobacco himself both 
for chewing and smoking in violation of the church rule, Brigham 
Young always maintained that its use in any form was a loath- 
some habit. “A doctor told an old lady in New York,” he once 
said, “when she insisted upon his telling her whether snuff would 
injure her brain, ‘It will not hurt the brain: there is no fear of 
snuff’s hurting the brain of any one, for no person that has brains 
will take snuff.’ ” 

It: was anticipated that the railroad would bring to Utah a 


flood of Gentile merchants who would take the Saints’ money 
. from the Church and the community to the East. In order to. 


_ prevent this, Brigham Young organized a boycott of Gentile mer- 


chants, and he kept insisting in his sermons that his Saints should 


deal only with each other. When the Gentile merchants found 


the Mormon boycott was costing them too much, they organized 
and offered to sell out to Brigham Young and the Mormon mer- 
chants, and to leave Utah. As much as he wanted them to go, 
Brigham Young was too shrewd to accept this offer. Had he 
accepted, another excuse would have been offered for interference 
by the federal government, for an exodus in a body of all the 
Gentile merchants would have been proof to the rest of the 
country that no non-Mormon could live and do business in Utah. | 
Brigham Young answered the Gentiles that any merchant, Jew, 
Mohammedan, or Christian, who was not a rogue, was welcome. 
to do business in Utah. He also added that he had not asked the 
merchants to come, and he had no reason to ask them to leave. 
But he used all his efforts to make their business unprofitable 
while they remained. The larger merchants could withstand the 
force of his propaganda, for there were always many Mormons 
who, in spite of the advice and the anger of their leader, con- 
sidered that they should be allowed to buy where, when, and what 
they pleased. In order to distinguish his shop from that of a 
Gentile, every Mormon merchant had a sign over his door with 
the symbol of the All-Seeing Eye and beneath it the motto, 
“Holiness to the Lord.” < 
After the Civil War, however, Brigham Young began to lose’ 


‘some of his control of the Mormon merchants. The first dis- 
\senters were the Walker brothers, four enterprising Englishmen, 


who had settled in Utah and were regular members of the Mor- 
mon Church. They had made money by dealing with the United 


430 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


States soldiers stationed at Camp Douglas during the Civil War, 
and after the war their enterprises increased steadily in scope and 
in value. When they were called upon by the Church authorities 
for their tithes of ten per cent. of their annual income, one of the 
brothers replied by sending his check for $500 to the bishop of 
his ward with instructions that it be used for charity. When this 
check was brought to Brigham Young, he refused to accept it in 
lieu of the tithe, and Walker replied by tearing it up. That was 
the signal for war between Brigham Young and the Walker 
brothers. Brigham Young did his utmost to keep his brethren 
from buying at their stores, but he was not altogether successful, 
for the Walkers were the largest and most enterprising mer- 
chants in the Territory, and Mormons continued to trade with 
them in secret, for they carried the best goods and the most varied 
assortments. However, their sales were said to have decreased 
from $60,000 a month to $5,000 a month during Brigham 
Young’s campaign against them. After the Walker brothers 
were excommunicated, they gave $1,000 to the Perpetual Immi- 
gration Fund to help bring some of their poor fellow countrymen 
to Utah. Brigham Young announced in the pulpit that they. 
would be blest for their generosity, but that Mormons must not 
trade with them. 

W. S. Godbe, another prosperous merchant of Utah, was 
also an elder in the Mormon Church. He, with E. L. T. Har- 
rison, published a literary magazine in Salt Lake City, known 
as The Utah Magazine. The demand for literature, however, 
proved slight, and the magazine was soon discontinued. Godbe, 
with Harrison, who was his editor, took a trip to New York as 
recreation after their unsuccessful attempt to make literature in 
Utah. Both of them were beginning to find the literary crudities 
of the Book of Mormon too much for their credulity and their 
faith. During the long days and nights in the stage-coaches and 
the railroad cars they spoke to each other frankly of their doubts, 
and they began to admit to themselves that they were on the way 
to apostasy. But they had made Utah their home for many 
years, all their friends and associations were there, Godbe’s large 
and profitable business was there, and they did not wish to abandon 
all these ties and move to another part of the country. In their 
New York hotel they decided one evening to pray for guidance. 
While they knelt in prayer, they heard a voice which spoke words 
of consolation. What those words were they never said, but dur- 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 431 


ing the next three weeks, while Godbe went about the streets pur- 
chasing goods for his store in Salt Lake City, Harrison sat in the 
hotel room writing out a series of questions on religion and 
philosophy. In the evenings both men remained in their room 
to receive the “bands of spirits’ who visited them nightly. Mr. 
Harrison asked the spirits his questions, one by one, and the two 
men carefully wrote down the answers. These sessions lasted for 
two hours every evening, and at the end of three weeks Godbe and 
Harrison had accumulated considerable spiritual information. 
Mr. Harrison later told some friends in Salt Lake City that he 
had received a communication from Humboldt’s spirit that, when 
he revealed it, would some day upset the Darwinian theory, but 
Mr. Darwin’s spirit did not seem to think it worth while to reply. 
The spirits also told the two men much about Mormonism and 
its origins in the spirit power of Joseph Smith, and they indi- 
cated to Godbe and Harrison how much was true and how much 
was false in Smith’s doctrines. 

When Godbe and Harrison returned to Salt Lake City, they 
formed a little group of men who were discontented with the rule 
of Brigham Young. They began to publish another magazine, in 
which they exposed the ignorance and superstition of the age, 
and, by implication, that of Brigham Young. MHarrison, the 
editor of the magazine, was promptly ordered to go on a mission 
to England, and some of his associates were listed for missions 
elsewhere, but all refused to obey Brigham Young’s commands. 

One of the things which the spirits of New York told Harrison 
and Godbe was that the mineral wealth of Utah should be de- 
veloped. Brigham Young had for many years refused to allow 
his Mormons to engage in mining, in spite of the wealth of silver 
and gold which was being unearthed in nearby Nevada and Cali- 
fornia, and in spite of indications that there was mineral wealth 
in Utah. The mining propaganda of the Godbeites, as they soon 
were called, was in direct opposition to the anti-mining ideas of) 

' Brigham Young. All the followers of Godbe and Harrison were 
“excommunicated and delivered over to the buffetings of Satan. 
In the course of the hearing on their excommunication the God- 
beites asked a significant question. “We inquired,” wrote Har- \ 
‘ rison, “whether it was not possible for us to honestly differ from | 
the presiding priesthood, and were answered that such a thing 
- was impossible. ‘We might as well ask whether we could honestly | 
| differ from the Almighty.’ Against this excess of authority wé~ 


ene 


432 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


solemnly protested.” After their excommunication the Godbeites 
published, besides their magazine, a dissenting newspaper, the 
Salt Lake Tribune, in which they advocated their own brand of, 
spiritualistic salvation. \ 
~~ The Godbeite schism was nothing more than the inevitable — 
- struggle between Brigham Young’s ideas and individualistic big | 
business. Brigham Young wished to keep his territory as free | 
from Gentiles as possible, and the mining schemes of the God- | 
beites, which they advocated even more strenuously than they did | 
their religious ideas, would have brought to Utah hordes of unruly 
men from the rest of the country. In the struggle Godbe’s merf- 
cantile business was ruined, but he organized in London the 
Chicago Silver Mining Company, which proved one of the most 
successful mining enterprises in Utah. 

Brigham Young opposed the introduction of mining into Utah, 
not because his economics were reactionary, but because he was 
far-sighted from the point of view of his own cooperative com- 
munity. He believed firmly in hard work and thrift, which had 
'thus far proved so eminently successful in Utah. But the whole 
aim of a miner was to strike luck and make money fast. It was 
therefore natural that Brigham Young should struggle with all 
his powerful influence against the development of parts of his. 
Territory into a mess of small huts and temporary structures, 
whose occupants were interested in digging gold and silver from’ 
the ground rather than planting crops in it. 

Brigham Young’s early trade of carpenter had its effect on the 
orderly disposition of his mind. It impressed him with the neces- 
sity of making two joints meet and fit perfectly, and in the process 
he was quite willing to saw a little from one or the other, or both; 
men to him were like boards, except that they frequently proved 
harder to manage. He was building a mansion, and if he found 
knots in his lumber which could not be removed or varnished, he » 
threw the boards away and hoped that some one or something 
would burn them up. He was apt to regard any expression of 
© personality and individuality as an act of disobedience, and it 
‘seemed impossible for him to realize that a man might regard 
himself with justice as more important than the aggregation to 
which he belonged. To him the all-important thing was the 
aggregation, and no man had a right to interfere with its pros- 
perity. The spirit of codperation had become a mania with him, 
and he used the whole force of his own personality in its inter- 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 433 


ests. He himself was never eccentric; he had worked with Joseph 

Smith during the lifetime of the Prophet in a subordinate ca- 
pacity, and, so far as we know, he was content to do so forever, 
providing his work afforded opportunities for the capacities which 
he knew he possessed. He never betrayed cravings for personal) 
y glory, but his vanity was likely to be more than satisfied by the 
_ realization that he was the state and the church too; he could 
_ afford to merge his own personality in his organization, for his 
_ organization was his personality to a greater extent than any 
_ organization was ever the expression of one man in the history 
_ of the United States. 

“~~ A few years before the Godbeite rebellion Brigham Young 
was confronted with another schism, which was of a more re- 
ligious nature. Joseph Morris was a Welsh emigrant Mormon 
who lived in an obscure settlement in Weber County. In Novem- 
ber, 1860, he was suddenly inspired by God to reform the Mor- 
mon Church. He walked forty miles from his home to Salt Lake | 
City to offer Brigham Young two letters which he said he had 
received from God. The purport of these letters was that Brig- 
ham Young must reform if he wished to be saved. In spite of the 
distance Morris had come, and in spite of the awful contents of 
the divine letters, Brigham Young is said to have answered them 
“with a brief and filthy response.” Morris’s neighbors, however, 
believed in him, and when he returned home, he formed them 
into a new branch of the Mormon Church. His main difference 
with Brigham Young’s church was one of opinion concerning 
the exact time of Christ’s coming. Joseph Morris maintained 
that Christ would be with them any day, and that preparations 
must be made speedily to receive him in righteousness. As early 
as 1859 Morris had written Brigham Young to say that he did 
not believe that Young was a prophet. In the letter to Brigham 
Young in which he announced his own divinity he wrote: “And 
I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the 
bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold 
on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, 
and bound him a thousand years. Who is that angel? It is 
your humble servant.” Morris also pretended to be a latter-day 
Moses. The Mormons claimed that Morris had been excom- 
municated from the Church twice for immorality, and that at the 
very time when he was pretending to be a prophet, he was living 
in adultery, or as Wilford Woodruff expressed it: “I told Morris 


434 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


that he was not a Prophet of God, neither the 7th Angel; that 
when the 7th Angel came to earth he would not spend the first 
year of his mission with a woman whose husband was crazy, and 
commit adultery with her.” 

Joseph Morris soon had five hundred followers. He received 
more numerous and more detailed revelations than Joseph Smith 
had received. Three English clerks and three Danish clerks were 
employed daily in writing his heavenly communications. The 
only extant revelation of Joseph Morris’s is even more crude than 
any received by Joseph Smith. It began: “Behold, I am He that 
shuts, and no one opens, and that opens and no one shuts, even 
Jesus Christ ; and I am about to speak unto you again, concerning 
my servant John Parsons, according to your request.” * In his 
own neighborhood Morris wore a royal robe and a crown, and 
carried a regal scepter. The Mormons have gone to some pains 
to show that Joseph Morris was mentally deranged as a result of 
severe burns he received before his arrival in Utah and of a severe 
illness he contracted en route from Wales. But this was taking 
dangerous ground, for the only form his alleged insanity ever 
took was a fertility in the reception of divine revelations, and 
’ their own prophet had been rather good at that sort of thing 
himself. They also wrote of Joseph Morris as if it were incredi- 
ble that a man should get revelations from God in the latter half 
of the nineteenth century, and the scorn they heaped upon him is 
the same variety that was inflicted upon Joseph Smith by the 
Gentiles during the first half of the century. 

Brigham Young sent John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff to 
investigate Morris’s colony, and all its members were summarily 
excommunicated. Brigham Young had learned nothing prac- 
tical from the psychology of the Mormon persecutions, and the 
result of this wholesale excommunication was to increase the 
numbers of the colony by many previously faithful members of 
Brigham Young’s community. 

Since, according to Joseph Morris, Christ would be along any 
day, it was not necessary for the true believers to have much 
property in the future, and he urged with success that they con- 
secrate all their possessions to the new church, to be used by the 
individuals who owned them only as they needed them. But 
Christ did not come, and the enthusiasm of Morris’s believers 


*A Voice from the West to the Scattered People of Weber and All the 
Seed of Abraham. San Francisco, 1879. 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 435 


began to cool. Some of them decided to leave the colony, and to 
take their former possessions with them. Then the quarrels 
began. Some of those who left took better cattle from the com- 
mon compound than they had brought, or refused to share the 
proportion of expenses they had helped to incur. The dissenters 
from Morris’s judgments on these matters appealed to the courts 
at Salt Lake City, and writs were issued, but they were not hon- 
ored by the Morrisites. Then the anti-Morrisites began to seize 
the wheat of their former brethren as it was sent to the mill, and 
in this act some of them were taken prisoners and shut up in a 
calaboose improvised for the occasion at Kington Fort. 
Meanwhile, Joseph Morris had assured his faithful followers 
that the second advent of Christ was nearer than ever, and that 
there was no longer any need to plow or to sow, because they 
already had sufficient cattle and grain to sustain them until his 
arrival. But Morris and his associates had provided themselves 
with rifles and ammunition for use until Christ should appear to 
defend them. The Mormon courts sent a posse against them 
with orders to liberate the prisoners held at Kington Fort. From 
a mountain overlooking the Morrisite community the posse sent 
a message that unless the leaders surrendered themselves and their 
prisoners within thirty minutes, forcible measures would be taken. 
When he received this message, and his followers asked him what 
he was going to do about it, Joseph Morris replied that he would 
“go and inquire of the Lord.” He was heard throughout the 
settlement praying earnestly. When he finally came from his 
house, the women and children and most of the men were gath- 
ered together waiting for him. He carried in his hand a piece of 
paper which proved to be a revelation, and he began to read it 
to his privy council. In it God said that their enemies were about 
to be destroyed, and that not a hair of the head of one Morrisite 
would be damaged. Everybody prayed, and the revelation was 
then read to the assembled people. Richard Cook, a Morrisite 
leader, arose to ask the congregation which they preferred to 
obey, a temporal demand for surrender, or a divine revelation 
from God. Just as they were about to vote on this question, a 
cannon boomed, and two women in the front rows of the Bowery 
fell dead. The thirty minutes of the demand for the surrender 
were up, and the posse from Salt Lake City began to triumph over 
the revelation from God. The next moment the lower jaw of a 
young girl of thirteen was shot off, and her screams put an end 


436 BRIGHAM YOUNG | 


to the meeting. The people were advised to hurry to their homes 
and defend themselves. They hardly needed the advice, for they 
had already begun to make for cellars and potato-pits. The firing 
continued with terrifying regularity. 

For three days firing on both sides continued, and then the 
Morrisites raised a white flag. Colonel Burton, in charge of the 
Mormon posse, rode towards them on horseback. He was ex- 
cited, for he did not trust either Morris or his followers. “Where 
is the man?” he asked one of his party. Joseph Morris was 
pointed out to him, and Burton rode up to the new prophet and 
demanded in the name of the Lord that he surrender. “No, never, 
never!” answered Morris. He expressed a desire to speak to his 
people, and began to say, “Brethren, I’ve taught you true princi- 
ples—’’ when Colonel Burton drew his revolver and shot him 
through the neck and shoulder, remarking, ‘“There’s your 
prophet.” Firing again, he asked the frightened people, ““What 
do you think of your prophet now?’ He then shot Joseph 
Banks, Morris’s leading associate, and killed a Mrs. Bowman, 
who had just shrieked at him, ‘“‘Blood-thirsty wretch!” He is also 
credited with the death of another woman. The rest of the Mor- 
risites were then marched to Salt Lake City, where some of the 
men were tried and convicted of murder, but all were pardoned 
by Governor S. S. Harding.’ A crop of Messiahs arose from 
among Morris’s followers after the death of their prophet. 
Among these was Goodmund Goodmundson, who offered a few 
revelations in Sacramento, California, but his divinity died from 
lack of support. 


III 


His quarrels with rival merchants and rival prophets made Brig- 
ham Young more determined than ever to knit his Zion closer. In 
1860 several Mormons asked Brigham Young for permission to 
organize a large Mormon cooperative business, which would sell 
general merchandise to Mormons throughout the Territory, and 

would get its capital from them. At the time Brigham Young 
was still advocating home manufactures in preference to importa- 
' tion, and he refused to sanction the scheme. It was only after 
. the railroad reached Utah and the scale of business changed com- 


“S This account of the Morrisite episode is based on the information in Ban- 
croft’s History of Utah and Stenhouse’s Rocky Mountain Saints. 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 437 


pletely, that Brigham Young realized that he could no longer con-_ 
fine his people to home consumption of home industry. In order | 
to combat the activities of the large Gentile and apostate mer- — 
chants, Brigham Young organized Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile 
Institution. This was a great blow to the Gentile merchants, and_\ 
after its organization Brigham Young was known among ther 
as The Profit. 

Zion’s Codperative Mercantile Institution was a great weapon 

in the hands of Brigham Young. The Church as a corporation 
and Brigham Young personally were both large investors in_the 
enterprise, and the magnitude which the cooperative institution) 
“soon attained increased Brigham Young’s power in the com 
' munity and also enabled him to find employment for his 
“numerous sons and their large families. The codperative soon 
established its own factories and workshops, and before long it 
became the largest organization of its kind in the West. No 
Mormon who had not paid his tithing was allowed to invest in 
the cooperative store, and this was a bludgeon in the hands of the 
Church tax collectors, for investment in the institution soon 
proved both profitable and advisable. No Mormon merchant 
could afford to remain outside the organization. The small mer- 
chant was swallowed up unless he joined, and the large merchant 
could not withstand the overwhelming competition. The co- 
operative institution also prevented individual Mormons from 
becoming too wealthy at the same time that it increased the cor- 
porate wealth of the Church. It was the great solution to Brig- 
ham Young’s last problem, the problem of keeping his people 
progressive and at the same time preventing them from becoming 
rebellious. By means of Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institu- 
tion the Mormons were enabled to take part in the big business. 
activities of the period, and the leaders of the Church became the’ 
leaders of big business in Utah. 

But Brigham Young knew that one cooperative HNeoantie 
institution, however large, could not absorb the fortunes of indi- 
viduals forever. Besides, there were many branches of industry. 
and agriculture which were not touched by the institution. In)\. 

(his last years he tried to establish a form of communism which. 
Swould bind his people together inseparably. In the hearing on 
the excommunication of the Godbeites Brigham Young said: 
“These men complain because they are called upon to submit their 
financial affairs to the control of the servants of God. But I tell 


438 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


them that the day is coming, and is near at hand, when the Latter- 
day Saints will give their wages to the bishop of the Church, and 
they will give them back what they think is right for the support 
of their families.” It was exactly this system which Brigham 
Young introduced in 1870. 

--—~Joseph Smith, it will be remembered, had advocated what he 
called the United Order of Enoch, which required each Saint to 

- consecrate all his property to the Church, and he received back 

‘what he needed as he needed it. When he was advocating a 
revival of this system in 1870, Brigham Young told his people: 
“Will there be any rich or poor then? No. How was it in the 
time of Enoch? Had they some rich and some poor? Did some 
ride in their silver carriages, as I do? No. If I had my way, 
we would foot or ride together, and we shall see the day when we 
shall do it.’ He elaborated in detail this great dream ‘of his last 
years at the semi-annual conference of the Church in October, 
172% 


“Now suppose we had a little society organized on the plan I 
mentioned at the commencement of my remarks—after the Order 
of Enoch—would we build our houses all alike? Noa. How should 
we live? I will tell you how I would arrange for a little family, 
say about a thousand persons. I would build houses expressly for 
their convenience in cooking, washing and every department of their 
domestic arrangements. Instead of having every woman getting up 
in the morning and fussing around a cook-stove or over the fire, 
cooking a little food for two or three or half a dozen persons, or a 
dozen, as the case may be, she would have nothing to do but go to 
her work. Let me have my arrangement here, a hall in which I 
can seat five hundred persons to eat; and I have my cooking ap- 
paratus—ranges and ovens—all prepared. And suppose we had a 
hall a hundred feet long with our cooking room attached to this 
hall; and there is a person at the further end of the table and he 
should telegraph that he wanted a warm beafsteak; and this is 
conveyed to him by a little railway, perhaps under the table, and 
he or she may take her beafsteak . . . and we can seat five hundred 
at once and serve them all in a very few minutes. And when they 
have all eaten the dishes are piled together, slipped under the table, 
and run back to the ones who wash them. We could have a few 
Chinamen to do that if we did not want to do it ourselves. Under 
such a system the women could go to work making their bonnets, 
hats and clothing, or in the factories. I have not time to map it 
out before you as I wish to. But here is our dining room, and 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 439 


adjoining this is our prayer room, where we would assemble per- 
haps five hundred persons at one time, and have our prayers in the 
evening and in the morning. When we had.our prayers and our 
breakfast, then each and every one to his business. But the in- 
quiry is, in a moment, How are you going to get them together? 
Build your houses just the size you want them, whether a hundred 
feet, fifty feet or five, and you have them so arranged that you can 
walk directly from work to dinner. ‘Would you build the houses 
all alike?’ Oh no, if there is any person who has better taste in 
building than others, and can get up more tasteful houses, make 
your plans and we will put them up, and have the greatest variety 
we can imagine. 

“What will we do through the day? Each one go to his work. 
. .. Work through the day, and when it comes evening, instead of 
going to a theater, walking the streets, riding, or reading novels— 
these falsehoods got up expressly to excite the minds of youth— 
repair to our room, and have our historians, and our different 
teachers to teach classes of old and young, to read the Scriptures to 
them; to teach them history, arithmetic, reading, writing, and paint- 
ing; and have the best teachers that can be got to teach our day 
schools. Half the labor necessary to make a people moderately 
comfortable now, would make them independently rich under such 
a system. ... And when Sunday morning came every child would 
be required to go to the school room, and parents to go to meeting 
or Sunday school, and not get into their waggons or carriages, or 
on the railroads, or lounge around reading novels; they would be 
required to go to meeting, to read the Scriptures, to pray and cul- 
tivate their minds. ... 

“A society like this would never have to buy anything; they would 
make and raise all they would eat, drink and wear, and always 
have something to sell and bring money, to help to increase their 
comfort and independence. 

“Well, but,’ one would say, ‘I shall never have the privilege of 
riding again in a carriage in my life.’ Oh what a pity! Did you 
ever ride in one when you had your own way? No, you never 
thought of such a thing. Thousands and thousands of Latter-day 
Saints never expect to own a carriage or to ride in one. Would we 
ride in carriages? Yes, we-would; we would have them suitable for 
the community, and give them their proper exercise; and if I were 
with you, I would be willing to give others just as much as I have 
myself. And if we have sick, would they want a carriage to ride 
in? Yes, and they would have it too, we would have nice ones to 
carry out the sick, aged and infirm, and give them exercise, and 
give them a good place to sleep in, good food to eat, good company 
to be. with them and take care of them... . 


440 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


“If I had charge of such a society as this to which I refer, I 
would not allow novel reading; yet it is in my house, in the houses 
of my counsellors, in the houses of these Apostles, these Seventies 
and High Priests, in the houses of the High Council in this city, and 
in other cities, and in the houses of the Bishops, and we permit it; 
yet it is ten thousand times worse than it is for men to come here 
and teach our children the a b c, good morals, and how to behave 
themselves, ten thousand times worse! You let your children read 
novels until they run away, until they get so that they do not care— 
they are reckless, and if you do not break their backs and tie them 
up they will go to hell. That is rough, is it not? Well, it is a com- 
parison. You have got to check them some way or other, or they 
will go to destruction. They are perfectly crazy. Their actions 
say, ‘I want Babylon stuck on to me; I want to revel in Babylon; 
I want everything I can think of or desire.’ If I had the power 
to do so, I would not take such people to heaven. God will not take 
them there, that [ am sure of. He will try the faith and patience 
of this people. I would not like to get into a society where there 
were no trials; but I would like to see a society organized to show 
the Latter-day Saints how to build up the kingdom of God. 

“Do you think we shall want any lawyers in our society? No, 
I think not. . .. I feel about them as Peter of Russia is said to 
have felt when he was in England. He saw and heard the lawyers 
pleading at a great trial there, and he was asked his opinion con- 
cerning them. He replied that he had two lawyers in his empire, 
and when he got home he intended to hang one of them. That is 
about the love I have for some lawyers who are always stirring up 
strife. Not but that lawyers are good in their place; but where is 
their place? I cannot findit.... 

“Would you want doctors? Yes, to set bones. We should want 
a good surgeon for that, or to cut off a limb. But do you want 
doctors? For not much of anything else, let me tell you. Only the 
traditions of the people lead them to think so; and here is a grow- 
ing evil in our midst. It will be so in a little time that not a woman 
in all Israel will dare to have a baby unless she can have a doctor 
by her. I will tell you what to do, you ladies, when you find you 
are going to have an increase, go off into some country where you 
cannot call for a doctor, and see if you can keep it. I guess you 
will have it, and I guess it will be all right, too. ...I say that 
unless a man or woman who administers medicine to assist the 
human system to overcome disease, understands, and has that in- 
tuitive knowledge, by the Spirit, that such an article is good for that 
individual at that very time, they had better let him alone. Let the 
sick do without eating, take a little something to cleanse the stomach, 


A COOPERATIVE ZION ++] 


bowels and blood, and wait patiently, and let Nature have time to 
gain the advantage over the disease... . 

“Tf this could be done I want to say to the Latter-day Saints, 
that I have a splendid place, large enough for about five hundred 
or a thousand persons to settle upon, and I would like to be the 
one to make a donation of it, with a good deal more, to start 
the business, to see if we can actually accomplish the affair, and 
show the Latter-day Saints how to build up Zion.” ° 


The Saints would have had to be saints in deed as well as in 
name to carry out Brigham Young’s ideal of a huge orphan 
asylum, where all mature men and women were to be instructed in 
what they must do and prevented from doing what they pre- 
ferred. He himself realized the difficulty of imposing an ideal 
on another person, for in the course of the above sermon, he 
interpolated this statement: ‘‘But I would not form a society, nor 
ask an individual to go to heaven by breaking all the bones in his 
body, and putting him in a silver basket, and then, hitching him to 
a kite, send him up.there. I would not do it if I had the power, 
for if his bones were not broken he would jump out of the basket, 
that is the idea. I see a great many who profess to be Latter-day 
Saints, who would not be contented in heaven unless their feelings 
undergo a great change, and if they were there, you would have 
to break their backs, or they would get out. But we want to see 
nothing of this in this little society.” ; 

A community along the lines laid down by Brigham Young 
was organized at a place in southern Utah appropriately named 
Orderville. Brigham Young gave it aid, advice, and encourage- 
ment, and it survived until a few years after his death, when it 
was discontinued because it was found impracticable. Brigham 
Young’s ideas on the United Order were then ignored, but some 
Mormons still believe it to be a divine institution. 


IV 


~ Even without the regimen proposed by Brigham Young in his) 
_ plans for the United Order of Enoch, there were complaints that | 
“life in Utah lacked spice and variety. “It is frequently re-- 
marked,’ Brigham Young once said, “that there is too much 


6 Journal of Discourses, vol. 15, pp. 220-227. 


442 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


sameness in this community. True, we do not have the variety 
they do in the world, drinking, carousing, quarreling, litigation, 
etc. But if you want a change of this kind, you can get up a dog 
fight. I think that would be about the extent of the quarreling 
you want to see. It would be as much as I would desire to wit- 
ness. I have seen enough of the world, without ever desiring 
to behold another drunken man. I never wish to see another law- 
suit. I feel perfectly satisfied without it.’’ 

Although he refused to countenance drinking, carousing, or 
quarreling for pleasure, Brigham Young favored other more 
innocent diversions. He loved dancing and the theater, and he 
frequently attacked the state of mind which could regard those 
pleasures as sins. 


“You are well aware,” Brigham Young once said in the pulpit, 
“that the wickedness of the world, or the apostasy of the Church 
is so great, that those who now profess religion cannot enjoy their 
own natural privileges in the world. In many places their folly and 
superstition are so great that they would consider they had com- 
mitted the sin of blasphemy if they happened to hear a violin. The 
world could not hire a good, honest, sound Presbyterian, of 
the old fashion and cut, to look into a room where a company of 
young men and women were dancing, lest they should sin against 
the Holy Ghost. This over-righteous notion is imbibed by the gen- 
erality of professors of religion, but it is because they themselves 
have made it a sin. Let us look at the root of the matter. In the 
first place, some wise being organized my system, and gave me my 
capacity, put into my heart and brain something that delights, 
charms, and fills me with rapture at the sound of sweet music. J 
did not put it there; it was some other being. As one of the modern 
writers has said, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.’ 
It has been proved that sweet music will actually tame the most 
malicious and venomous beasts, even when they have been stirred up 
to violent wrath, and make them docile and harmless as lambs. Who 
gave the lower animals a love for those sweet sounds, which with 
magic power fill the air with harmony, and cheer and comfort the 
hearts of men, and so wonderfully affect the brute creation? It 
was the Lord, our heavenly Father, who gave the capacity to enjoy 
these sounds, and which we ought to do in His name, and to His 
glory. But the greater portion of the sectarian world consider it 
sacrilege to give way to any such pleasure as even to listen to sweet 
music, much more to dance to its delightful strains.” ? 


7 Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 48. 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 443 


Brigham Young also said that he got very little time for exer- 
cise, and that he took it in the form of dancing, and thereby he 
killed two birds with one stone, for he was enabled also to exer- 
cise and to amuse his wives. Dances were highly important in > 
a polygamous community, where wives did not see much of their | 
husbands who were busy supporting and entertaining multiple 
households. Some kinds of dancing, however, did not meet with | 
Brigham Young’s approval. He refused to allow the polka at _ 
‘Mormon dances, and he once said in a sermon: ‘“‘But a man or 
woman that intends, when they go into a room prepared for 
music and dancing, to serve the Devil a little while, I would to 
God they would go to California, where they may serve the Devil 
all they desire to. . . . Those who cannot serve God with a pure 
heart in the dance should not dance.” 

The balls organized under the supervision of Brigham Young 
at the Social Hall which he built for that purpose were sumptu- 
ous and exclusive. Tickets were sold at ten dollars each, and 
the ticket entitled the bearer to bring with him one wife. For 
any other wives he might care to bring the husband paid two 
dollars each. The hall was decorated with evergreens and paper 
ornaments, and in the center was a large evergreen floral decora- 
tion reading “Our Mountain Home.” The festivities began as 
early as four o’clock in the afternoon, when Brigham Young 
entered, called the assembly to order, and prayer was offered and 
the congregation blessed by its President. Brigham Young then 
led off in the first cotillion with one of his wives. At eight 
o’clock supper was announced, and it was usually an enormous 
meal, without wine, but with many varieties of meats, including 
bear and beaver, and with various native vegetables. After the 
meal, the dancing began again, and songs were sung or duets 
played between dances. Prayer closed the party at about five 
o'clock in the morning. 

During their first years in Utah dramatic performances were 
frequently given by the Mormons in the Social Hall. The 
Deseret Dramatic Association was formed in 1860 by energetic 
members of the community. The manager called on Brigham 
Young and offered to reserve the house for him and his family 
any night he named. Brigham Young accepted the offer, and 
the manager sent ninety tickets, which were used by Brigham 
Young, his wives, and children. The few spare tickets were used 
by Heber Kimball and some of his family. Brigham Young 


Att BRIGHAM YOUNG 

enjoyed this performance so much that he decided that he must 
have a regular professional theater, and he set about building 
one. 

The Salt Lake Theater was the largest theater in the United 
States west of Chicago when it was completed. It seated 3,000 
persons, and its interior was, according to Artemus Ward, “quite 
as brilliant as that of any theater in London.” On March 6, 
1862, the Salt Lake Theater was opened, and formally dedicated 
to the Lord by Daniel H. Wells, who prayed that He would 
allow therein no “disorder, drunkenness, debauchery, or licen- 
tiousness of any sort or kind.” Then Brigham Young delivered 
an address on “The Capacity of the Human Body and Mind for 
Development.” A choir sang The Star-Spangled Banner and the 
Marseillaise, for the Civil War was still in progress. Then the 
comic drama The Pride of the Market by J. R. Planché was per- 
formed by the members of the Deseret Dramatic Association. 
At the second performance, given on the following Saturday 
night, this popular play was repeated, and a farce, Stage Secrets, 
was also performed. 

The success of the theater was immediate, and Brigham Young, 
through his manager, who was also his son-in-law, Hiram B. 
Clawson, sent east for Thomas A. Lynne, a popular tragedian of 
the time, to act as instructor to the Mormon actors and actresses. 
Lynne was the first star of the Salt Lake Theater, and he ap- 
peared there in Virginius. In November, 1863, Mr. and Mrs. 
Selden Irwin appeared in The Lady of Lyons, which was the most 
popular play produced at the theater, and it continued twice a 
week until the following April. Maude Adams’s mother, who 
was born near Salt Lake City, made her début at the Salt Lake 
Theater. She played there in The Two Orphans. The plays of 
Shakespeare and Molicre were produced; Lawrence Barrett ap- 
peared in Henry V, and E. A. Sothern played in Lord Dun- 
dreary and David Garrick. During the last years of his life 
Brigham Young saw the best actors and actresses in the country 
perform at the theater he had started. Adelaide Neilson played 
there in Romeo and Juliet and in As You Like It. Tony Pastor’s 
vaudeville company appeared at the theater during August, 1877, 
and E. L. Davenport played there in Hamlet and Richelieu. 

During the season of 1864 George Pauncefort, the English 
actor, who was superior in ability to any actor who had previ- 
ously played at Salt Lake City, appeared there for a short 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 445 


engagement. Brigham Young went to see his first performance, 
but, suddenly, in spite of the glowing reports of his friends, he 
refused to occupy his usual box. Pauncefott had brought with 
him as his leading lady Mrs. Florence Bell, who, it is recorded, 
was more beautiful than she was talented. Brigham Young soon 
learned that Mr. Pauncefort and Mrs. Bell were for all practical 
purposes Mr. and Mrs. Pauncefort, but that they had neglected 
the formality of a marriage license. He immediately absented 
himself and his harem from the theater during the remainder of 
Pauncefort’s engagement, remarking that he “would not conie 
into the theater while that man Pauncefort was there.” 

An incident which caused as much comment in Salt Lake City 
as the Pauncefort scandal was Brigham Young’s own infatuation 
for Julia Dean Hayne. He gave several parties for this attractive 
actress during her long engagement at the Salt Lake Theater, 
where she played in the roles of Camille, Lady Macbeth, Lucretia 
Borgia, Medea, and Aladdin in The Wonderful Lamp. Brigham 
Young is said to have named his sleigh The Julia Dean, and he 
also wished to make her first a Mormon and then a Mrs. Young, 
but Mrs. Hayne, who was divorced from Mr. Hayne, found a 
younger. admirer in the Gentile Secretary of Utah Territory, 
James G. Cooper, whom she married. 

Brigham Young interfered with the drama again in 1860, 
when Lucille Western and James A. Herne played Nancy and Bill 
Sykes in Oliver Twist. In the scene where Bill Sykes beats Nancy 
to death with his stick Lucille Western came on the stage after 
the beating in the adjoining room, with her hair disheveled and 
hiding her face. Suddenly she turned towards the audience, and, 
throwing back her hair, disclosed a face covered with stage gore. 
“On this occasion,” wrote John S. Lindsay, the historian of the ~ 
Mormon theater, who was an eyewitness, “the picture was so 
revolting that several women in the audience fainted—everybody 
was shocked. . . . President Young was very angry over it. The 
picture was very abhorrent; there is no knowing what the physi- 
ological results were; it was rumored afterwards that a number of 
children were birthmarked as the result of it.” Brigham Young 
gave orders that the play was not to be repeated, and he sent 
messengers all over the city to tell the people not to go to see it, 
if it should be produced again. The managers withdrew the 
play, but Lindsay wrote that Brigham Young’s orders only 
aroused the curiosity of the people. 


446 - BRIGHAM YOUNG 


Brigham Young hated tragedies, and in the speech with which 


he opened the Salt Lake Theater he remarked, “If I had my way, 
I would never have a tragedy played on these boards. There is 
enough of tragedy in everyday life, and we ought to have amuse- 
ment when we come here.” In that same speech he laid down 
these rules of morality: 


“When the Saints come into this building, and look on this stage, 
to see our brethren and sisters perform to satisfy the sight, to sat- 
isfy the ear, and the desires and mind of the people, 1 want you to 
pray for them that the Lord Almighty may preserve them from ever 
having one wicked thought in their bosoms, that our actors may be 
just as virtuous, truthful, and humble before God and each other 
as though they were on a Mission to preach the Gospel. 

“T say to those who perform, if anything is discovered contrary 
to the strictest virtue and decorum, the offenders must leave this 
building. I intend this remark to apply also to the musicians. I 
wish the dramatic company to seek diligently and in all kindness to 
promote the happiness of all concerned. 

“Unless by my order I do not wish a drop of intoxicating liquor 
brought into this house; I want the actors behind the curtain, the 
musicians in the orchestra, and the audience to hear and observe 
this. 

“When this house is finished, there will be places in the passages 
where cakes, pies, fruits, &c., can be bought; but no intoxicating 
liquor will be allowed in these saloons. No drunken person will be 
permitted to enter this house; I will not have it polluted and dis- 
graced by the presence of the drunken, nor my brethren and sisters, 
who strive continually to do right, annoyed by the filthy breath of a 
poor, miserable filthy loafer. 

“We intend to preserve the strictest order Here? we do expect 
the people to come to this house praying, and their whole souls 
devoted to God, and to their religion. 

“Tragedy is favored by the outside world; I am not in favor of 
it. I do not wish murder and all its horrors and the villainy leading 
to it portrayed before our women and children; I want no child to 
carry home with it the fear of the fagot, the sword, the pistol, or 
the dagger, and suffer in the night from frightful dreams. I want 
such plays performed as will make the spectators feel well; and 
I wish those who perform to select a class of plays that will im- 
prove the public mind, and exalt the literary taste of the communi- 
ity. 9? 


8 Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, pp. 243-245. 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 447 


At the theater Brigham Young often sat in a rocking chair in 
the middle of the parquet, surrounded by his wives. When the 
play dragged, Artemus Ward reported, Brigham Young fell into 
a doze or rose and left the theater. Brigham Young believed so 
firmly in home industry that he was in favor of making the Salt 
Lake Theater exclusively Mormon in its acting personnel as well 
as its management, except for a few visiting stars. He persuaded 
several of his own daughters to act in the theater. Alice, Emily, 
and Zina appeared regularly in the plays. Alice told Hepworth © 
Dixon at dinner one day, “I am not myself very fond of playing, 
but my father desires that my sister and myself should act some- 
times, as he does not think it right to ask any poor man’s child 
to do anything which his own children would object to do.” 

Admission to the Salt Lake Theater was sometimes paid for in 
merchandise, and Artemus Ward gave in his book of travels this 
list of his receipts at the box office when he lectured there: 


“Among my receipts at the box-office this night were— 
20 bushels of wheat. 


SR eone so fe COIN, 

ya bats ” potatoes. 

ene Li ” oats. 

yea oy Salt: 

2 hams. 

1 live pig (Dr. Hingston chained him in the box-office). 
1 wolf-skin. 


5 pounds of honey in the comb. 

16 strings of sausages—2 pounds to the string. 

I cat-skin. 

1 churn (two families went in on this; it is an ingenious 
churn, and fetches butter in five minutes by rapid grind- 
ing). 

1 set of children’s under-garments, embroidered. 

I keg of apple-sauce. 

One man undertook to pass a dog (a cross between a Scotch 
terrier and a Welsh rabbit) at the box-office, and another 
presented a German-silver coffin plate, but the Doctor 
very justly repulsed ti.em both.” 


V 


While he was building places of recreation for his community, 
Brigham Young did not neglect the places of worship. At first 


448 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


when the Saints settled in Utah, they gathered for worship and 
instruction in a small tabernacle in winter and in a large, open-air 
bowery in summer. Finally, Brigham Young built an enormous, 
oval-domed Tabernacle on Temple Square, which was so con- 
structed that it required no posts to hold up its egg-shaped roof. 
The new Tabernacle seated about 8,000 persons, and the acoustics 
were so good that every sound was heard in every part of the 
building, unless the speaker rumbled too loudly. A large organ 
was built by Mormon mechanics, which was the pride of the com- 
munity for many years, both because of its size and its tone. 

The greatest work of Mormon construction, however, was the 
Temple, which took exactly forty years to complete, and which 
was not finished until many years after Brigham Young’s death. 
The corner stone of the Temple was laid in 1853, but work was 
discontinued from time to time because of lack of funds or lack 
of cooperation. The huge granite blocks of which the building 
is constructed were dragged slowly by ox-teams from the canons 
some miles away. This part of the labor alone required years for 
its completion. The Temple was supposed to be constructed by 
revelation, but Truman O. Angell was its temporal architect. 
Brigham Young wished the Temple built on such a solid founda- 
tion that it would last until the millennium, and in order to insure 
this, he ordered the foundation taken out and relaid, when he 
discovered that it had been laid “on chinky, small stones,” instead 
of solid rock. The Temple is said to have cost $4,000,000 to 
construct. It was finally finished in 1893, and dedicated by Presi- 
dent Wilford Woodruff. 

According to a pamphlet of lavish praise published soon after 
the Temple was completed, the Salt Lake Temple has many 
things that Solomon’s Temple, in all its simple grandeur, lacked: 
“Four engines and dynamos, with a capacity of two thousand 
electric lights, as well as the pumps, boilers, etc., and the motive 
power for the two handsome elevators that operate in the central 
west tower directly in front of us.”’ It also has a central heating 
plant and a perfect system of ventilation, with “sixteen fans, each 
of one-half horse power,” which are miraculously started by 
merely pressing an electric button. The baptismal font is a tri- 
umph of modern science, according to the anonymous writer of 
this pamphlet entitled House of the Lord, Historical and De- 
scriptive Sketch of the Salt Lake Temple: “It is of cast iron; is 
reached by a short flight of iron steps at either end, and rests 





MorMON TEMPLE IN SALT LAKE CITY 





ALT LAKE THEATER 


= 





ek at ~ me © Jt at 


A COOPERATIVE ZION 449 


upon the backs of twelve life-sized bronzed oxen, which stand 
within a railed enclosure sunk some three feet below the main 
floor. A genuine masterpiece of the artificer is this font, viewing 
it from whatsoever standpoint we may, for it is large without 
being oppressive and pleases not less with the massiveness of its 
construction than with the chaste elegance of his design. By the 
simplest sort of a contrivance it can be filled with water, or, the - 
water being in, it can be emptied—the entire proceeding requiring 
but sixteen minutes.” This device made it very convenient for 
baptizing large numbers of people for their fathers and grand- 
fathers. This Mormon writer also praises highly the magnificent 
bath tubs, with hot and cold water, and the onyx wash basins, 
fifteen of them, and “each is of rare beauty, and conveys the 
impression of an immense gem.” “The sanitary arrangements 
throughout are faultless,” and this could hardly be said for Solo- 
mon’s Temple, with which the Salt Lake Temple invited com- 
parison. 

On the walls in some of the rooms of the Temple are oil paint- 
ings of “The Crucifixion,” and the “Descent from the Cross,” by 
new masters. A painting of “Christ Preaching to the Nephites,” 
was proudly proclaimed to be 12x 18 feet in dimension. Vast, 
dazzling chandeliers of glass hang from the ceilings, giving prom- 
ise of blinding brilliance when they are illuminated. In one of 
the rooms of the western wing “is a mammoth mirror,” and there 
are “colossal triple mirrors’ in another vast room, which has 
twenty Grecian columns. Frescoes depicting scenes from the 
Book of Mormon adorn the walls. In the ascent to one of the 
towers “every floor is supplied with fire hose conveniently dis- 
posed, so that in case the unexpected, we might almost say the 
impossible, should happen, adequate remedy and protection would 
be at hand. In the top of the opposite tower beyond the elevator 
is a permanent reserve tank with a capacity of seven thousand 
gallons of water.” 

The Mormons have aroused curiosity among Gentiles concern= 
ing the interior of their Temple by permitting none but Mormons } 
to enter it. The exterior view of it is stern, and stolidly im- 
pressive. The massive building with its six rugged spires is, 
like the Mormon character, plain to a fault. No building was 
ever more typical of the dogged determination of the people who 
built it than the Mormon Temple. 

The prayer dedicating the Temple to the Lord, delivered on 


450 ERIGHAM YOUNG 


April 6, 1893, by President Wilford Woodruff, contained this 
passage : 


“We pray thee to bless, that they decay not, all the walls, parti- 
tions, floors, ceilings, roofs and bridging, the elevators, stairways, 
railings and steps, the frames, doors, windows, and other openings, 
all things connected with the lighting, heating, and sanitary ap- 
paratus, the boilers, engines, dynamos, the connecting pipes and 
wires, the lamps and burners, and all utensils, furniture and articles 
used in or connected with the holy ordinances administered in this 
house, the veils and the altars, the baptismal font and the oxen on 
which it rests, and all that pertains thereto, the baths, washstands 
and basins. Also the safes and vaults in which the records are pre- 
served, with the records themselves, and all books, documents, and 
papers pertaining to the office of the recorder, likewise the library, 
with all the books, maps, instruments, etc., that may belong thereto. 
We also present before thee, for thine acceptance, all the additions 
and buildings not forming a part of the main edifice, but being ap- 
pendages thereto; and we pray thee to bless all the furniture, seats, 
cushions, curtains, hangings, locks, and fastenings, and multitudi- 
nous other appliances and appurtenances found in and belonging to 
this Temple and its annexes, with all the work of ornamentation 
thereon, the painting and plastering, the gilding and bronzing, the 
fine work in wood and metal of every kind, the embroidery and 
needlework, the pictures and statuary, the carved work and canopies. 
Also the materials of which the buildings and their contents are 
made or composed—the rock, lime, mortar and plaster, the timbers 
and lath, the wood of various trees, the gold and silver, the brass 
and iron, and all other metals, the silk, wool, and cotton, the skins 
and furs, the glass, china, and precious stones, all these and all else 
herein we humbly present for thine acceptance and sanctifying 
blessing.” ® 


Obviously, the President was determined to leave nothing to the 
Imagination. 


8 House of the Lord, Historical and Descriptive Sketch, p. 27. 


Chapter XIII 


THE END 


I 


As he felt himself growing old and feeble, Brigham Young be- 
came more than ever anxious to knit his organization closer and 
closer. He continued to urge cooperation, home manufactures, 
the United Order, and codrdination of the Stakes of Zion. With 
his last public breath, which was a “Circular of the First Presi- 
dency,” issued at Salt Lake City on July 11, 1877, he advocated 
these things, and also education for the children; but he insisted 
that the school books should be published in Utah, and written 
there if possible, rather than imported at unnecessary expense 
from the East. The teachers, too, he wrote, should be Latter-day 
Saints, so that the children might learn only what they ought to 
know. | 

Once every year Brigham Young visited the settlements in the 
north and in the south, and during his last winters he spent much 
time in the milder southern settlements. A long train of coaches, 
carrying him and some of his wives, his Apostles, elders, and 
parts of their families traveled over the dusty roads, sometimes 
accompanied by a guard of Piute Indian warriors and armed 
Mormon militia. Before Brigham Young reached a settlement of 
his people a detachment of cavalry met his cavalcade, and nearer 
the settlement all the school children, in stiff white dresses and 
blouses, holding small flags, were lined up to greet him. In the 
larger settlements there was always a brass band, and the people 
were frequently grouped together along the roadway with ban- 
ners describing their condition. For the aged men there was the 
banner, ‘‘Fathers in Israel,” and for the elderly women, “‘Mothers 
in Israel.” The young men bore a banner with the device, “De- 
fenders of Zion,’ and the young women stood under the ensign, 
“Daughters of Zion, Virtue.” The small children were desig- 
nated in large letters, “The pipes Israel.”” Other banners pro- 


452 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


claimed sentiments of welcome, some reading, “Hail to Zion’s 
Chief,’ and others, “God Bless Brigham Young.” Occasionally 
a disagreeable incident marred the welcome. A visitor to Utah 
witnessed the last impressive procession in which Brigham Young 
took part during 1877. As the long line of carriages passed 
through the town of Ephraim, Ole Petersen, a Scandinavian con- 
vert who claimed that he had been cheated of his land by Brigham 
Young and sent on a mission that he might be robbed the more 
easily, waited for Brigham Young’s carriage, shook his fist at 
the Prophet, and shouted in a strident voice: “Oh, you Cheat! 
Oh, Church Fraud! You coward to forsake your tools! You are 
the man that they should have hung instead of Lee!” The car- 
riages rolled by, but it was observed that Brigham Young’s hard, 
thin mouth tightened, and his hands clenched the seat of his 
coach. 

' When he was seventy years old, Brigham Young was arrested, 
as we have already noted, for “lascivious cohabitation,” a crime 
which was punishable under the new laws by ten years’ imprison- 
ment and a fine of $1,000. At about the same time he was also 
indicted for murder, a charge based on the confessions of Bill 
Hickman, who wrote that he had killed men at the suggestion of 
“Brigham Young. On.this charge Brigham Young was not ad- 
mitted to bail, but out of consideration for his feeble health and 
his age, he was confined in one of his own houses for more than 
five months. A New York Tribune correspondent visited Brig- 
ham Young during this period of arrest. “I found the Mormon 
chief,” he wrote, “reclining in his easy chair, with a shawl spread 
over him. He said he was better, but weak from a severe attack 
of diarrhea, and too feeble to talk much. When asked how he 
felt in regard to the indictment and arrest, he said, ‘It is as easy 
as an old shoe.” He had no fears of the result. All attempts to 
destroy him and his people had failed heretofore.” 

At this critical time for Brigham Young the United States 
courts in Utah found themselves without money. The territorial 
legislature, which was controlled by the Mormons, refused to 
appropriate any money for the federal courts, and the Department 
of Justice held that the federal courts were not federal courts 
when they were trying territorial cases. This brought about a 
deadlock, and the consequent postponement of Brigham Young’s 
trial for murder. Judge McKean, who had been a Methodist min- 
ister before he was a judge, and who considered that he was a 


THE END 453 


crusader in a glorious fight against theocracy, refused to admit 
Brigham Young to bail, and he remained in his rocker with his 
shawl spread about his shoulders: for several months longer. 
Finally, the United States Supreme Court handed down its de- 
cision in the Engelbrecht case, by which the whole course of 
Judge McKean’s action in impaneling special non-Mormon juries 
to try cases involving Mormons was declared illegal, and all 
Judge McKean’s indictments were dismissed. 

During Brigham Young’s confinement the semi-annual confer- 
ence of the Church was due to be held, but it was postponed until 
he could be present. It was finally held on April 28, 1871, and 
the Deseret News reported the scene: Brigham Young said, “A 
word to the Latter-day Saints: Good morning.”’ The congrega- 
tion responded, “Good morning.” ‘How do you do?” asked 
Brigham Young. “Very well,” answered the whole congregation. 
“How is your faith this morning?” the inquired. ‘Strong in the 
Lord,” they answered. ‘How do you think I look after my long 
confinement?’ he asked. “First rate,’ the congregation an- 
swered. Brigham Young then told them that everything was 
always in the hands of the Lord, and that he had enjoyed a fine 
rest during his five months’ confinement to his house. 

The stream of distinguished visitors continued to pour into Salt » 
Lake City. In October, 1875, President Grant stopped there. 
Brigham Young met him in his private car, and both presidents 
uncovered, “President Grant,’ said President Young, “this 1s 
the first time I have ever seen a President of my country.” It is 
said that as Grant was driven through lines of smiling Sunday 
school children, he asked whose children they were. ‘Mormon 
children,”’ answered Governor Emery. “For several moments the 
President was silent,’ recorded a Mormon writer, “and then he 
murmured, in a tone of self-reproach, ‘I have been deceived!’ ” 
Perhaps President Grant had expected that polygamy bred mon- 
sters, and perhaps he said no such thing. 

Those visitors who called on Brigham Young and wrote AME 
impressions of him always liked him. He was “affable and cour- 
teous to strangers, and he did not object to their curiosity con- 
cerning him, so long as it did not enter too personally into his 
relations with his wives. He was about five feet ten inches in 
‘height, broad and thick-set, giving the impression of stolidity and 
vigor. His head was large and covered with soft auburn hair, 
which reached to the ear lobes in a half curl. Huis eyes were a cold 


454 BRIGHAM YOUNG 

gray, and they gazed at a stranger with a calm, but reserved, 
almost suspicious expression. The left eyelid drooped slightly 
from the effects of neuralgia, which he suffered from frequently, 
and which was the reason he kept his head covered except in his 
own house. His nose was sharp, somewhat pointed, and bent 
slightly towards the left. His mouth was long, with tightly com- 
pressed, thin lips, which hid the imperfect teeth of his lower jaw, 
except when he was talking. He wore no moustache, but a beard 
about six inches long covered his chin. When he stood, his 
‘heavy, broad shoulders stooped slightly. In the face there was 
an unmistakable expression of ironic humor, which illuminated 
somewhat the forbidding determination and self-assurance. In 
his pictures there is no trace of the kindliness which it is said he 
exhibited in the privacy of his family and in his relations with 
his associates. | 

The Prophet-President looked to Sir Richard Burton like a 
gentleman farmer of New England, and the fine state of preserva- 
tion Burton attributed “to his habit of sleeping, as the Citizen 
Proudhon so strongly advises, in solitude.” Brigham Young’s 
lack of pretension, and the power expressed in his appearance, 
impressed Burton favorably, for his personality contrasted strik- 
ingly with the “semi-maniacal self-esteem” of the Eastern re- 
ligious prophets whom Burton had met in the course of his 
travels. When Burton asked Brigham Young if he might become 
a Mormon, Brigham Young answered, “I think you have done 
that sort of thing before, Captain,’ for he was familiar with 
Burton’s liberal habit of joining every religion with which he 
came into contact. 

A man who met Brigham Young on the street or in his office 
was not likely to notice anything remarkable in the appearance of 
one who was acclaimed as an inspired genius by his friends and 
followers and denounced as a criminal fiend by his enemies and 
competitors. In the pulpit he was apt to show to the greatest 
advantage. He was no orator, and he was not eloquent; his 
grammar was sometimes irregular, and his pronunciation was 
often faulty; but there was no public character in the country at 
the time who used such vigorous and honest language to express 
his blunt, sincere ideas. He refused to believe that a spade by 
any other name would be nearly so effective. As a statesman» 
. Brigham Young is one of the few Americans deserving of the/ 
adjective great. In a situation of precariousness and importance 





BRIGHAM YouNG IN His Last YEARS 
From a contemporary photograph 





THE END 455 


he showed himself a man of resourcefulness and sturdiness, and 
his personality contributed as much as that of any one man to the 
development of the western half of the United States. He indi- 
cated to Americans of the eastern states what could be done with 
their unexploited frontier, and by successfully dominating his 
band of faithful disciples in the wilderness, he demonstrated that 
a wilderness could become paradise enough. Beset by the oppo- 
sition of the government, competing creeds of Christianity, the 
force of ridicule, and the power of intolerant prejudice, he built 
his scattered and insecure community into a compact body of self-— 
supporting people, who were soon able to dominate their section — 
of the world by their industry and their faith, as well as by their_ 
egotism and their intolerance. 

‘In one of his letters to the New York Herald Jedediah M. 
Grant, who, like all his associates, obeyed and worshiped Brigham 
Young, wrote: “I can’t undertake to explain Brigham Young to 
your Atlantic citizens, or expect you to put him at his value. Your 
great men Eastward are to me like your ivory and pearl-handled 
table knives, balance handles, more shining than the inside of my 
watch case, but, with only edge enough to slice bread and cheese 
or help spoon victuals, and all alike by the dozen one with an- 
other. Brigham is the article sells out West with us, between a 
Roman cutlass and a beef butcher knife, the thing to cut up a 
deer or cut down an enemy, and that will save your life or carve 
your dinner every bit as well, though the handpiece is buckhorn 
and the case a hogskin hanging in the breech of your pantaloons. 
You, that judge of men by the handle and sheath, how can I 
make you know a good Blade?” 


II 


Almost every year during the last ten years of his life Brigham 
Young watched one of his pioneers and his friends disappear. 
Heber Kimball died in 1868, and Jedediah Grant more than ten 
years before. Brigham Young lived on in almost complete pos- 
session of his vigorous faculties. These personal deaths neither 
dismayed nor disheartened him, for he lived in the perfect faith 
that he would see all these men and women again. In his unique 
funeral oration over the body of his best friend, Heber Kimball, 
Brigham Young said: “I will say to his wives and his children 
that I have not felt one particle of death in his house nor about it, 


456 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


and through this scene we are now passing | have not felt one 
particle of the spirit of death. He has fallen asleep for a certain 
purpose—to be prepared for a glorious resurrection ; and the same 
Heber C. Kimball, every component part of his body, from the 
crown of his head to the soles of his feet, will be resurrected, and 
he, in the flesh, will see God and converse with Him; and see his 
brethren and associate with them and they will enjoy a happy 
eternity.” With this firm conviction, which he considered ought 
to be shared by all the faithful, there was no room for senti- 
mentality in his mind, and no time for it in his life. “It would 
be a pleasure to us,” he added in this funeral sermon, “if it would 
be prudent and we had the time, for you to see the corpse; but it 
would not be prudent and we have not the time. This, perhaps, 
will be a matter of regret to many of you; but you must put up 
with it. I want to say to every one who wishes to see Brother 
Heber again, live so that you will secure to yourselves a part in 
the first resurrection, and I promise you that you will meet him 
and shake hands with him. But if you do not live so, I can give 
you no such promise.” 

Death to Brigham Young was a solemn ritual, the forerunner 
of great benefits, but it was not the occasion for sorrow or senti- 
mentality. John Baptiste, a resident of Salt Lake City, was dis- 
covered robbing the graves in the Mormon cemetery, and the 
people became excited and demanded vengeance. Brigham Young 
took up the problem in a sermon, in which he expressed his views 
_of death and the responsibility of relatives and friends towards 
those who had partaken of it: 


“Tt appears that a man named John Baptiste has practised rob- 
bing the dead of their clothing in our grave yard during some five 
years past. If you wish to know what I think about it, I answer, 
I am unable to think so low as to fully get at such a mean, con- 
temptible, damnable trick.. To hang a man for such a deed would 
not begin to satisfy my feelings. What shall we do with him? 
Shoot him? No, that would do no good to anybody but himself. 
Would you imprison him during life? That would do nobody any 
good. What I would do with him came to me quickly, after I 
heard of the circumstance; this I will mention, before I make other 
remarks, If it was left to me, I would make him a fugitive and a 
vagabond upon the earth. This would be my sentence, but probably 
the people will not want this done. 

“Many are anxious to know what effect it will have upon their 


THE END 457 


dead who have been robbed. I have three sisters in the grave yard 
in this city, and two wives, and several children, besides other con- 
nections and near relatives. I have not been:to open any of their 
graves to see whether they were robbed, and do not mean to do so. 
I gave them as good a burial as I could; and in burying our dead, 
we all have made everything as agreeable and comfortable as we 
could to the eye and taste of the people in their various capacities, 
according to the best of our judgments; we have done our duty in 
this particular, and I for one am satisfied. I defy any thief there 
is on earth or in hell to rob a Saint of one blessing. A thief may 
dig up dead bodies and sell them for the dissecting knife, or may 
take their raiment from them, but when the resurrection takes place, 
the Saints will come forth with all the glory, beauty, and excellency 
of resurrected Saints clothed as they were when they were laid 
away. 

“Some may inquire whether it is necessary to put fresh linen into 
the coffins of those who have been robbed of their clothing. As to 
this you can pursue the course that will give you the most content- 
ment and satisfaction; but if the dead are laid away as well as they 
can be, I will promise you that they will be well clothed in the 
resurrection, for the earth and the elements around it are full of 
these things. ... 

“Some I have been informed, can now remember having had sin- 
gular dreams, and others have heard rappings on the floor, on the 
bedstead, on the door, on the table, &c., and have imagined that they 
might have proceeded from the spirits of the dead calling on their 
friends to give them clothing, for they were naked. My dear 
friends have not been to me to tell me that they were naked, cold, 
&c.; and if any such rappings should come to me, I should tell them 
to go to their own place. I have little faith in those rappings. If 
I felt that I ought to pay attention to such things, I would not, so 
to speak, let my right hand know what my left did; and it would 
require a greater power than John Baptiste to make me believe 
either a truth or a lie... 

“If any wish to open the graves of their dead and put clothing on 
the coffins to satisfy their feelings, all right; I am satisfied. I am 
also satisfied that had we been brought up and traditionated to burn 
a wife upon the funeral pile, we should not be satisfied unless this 
practice was followed out; we would have the same grief and sorrow 
that we now have when we find that our dead have been robbed 
of their clothing. . . . The power and influence of tradition has a 
great deal to do with the way we feel about this matter of our dead 
being robbed. 

“We are here in circumstances to bury our dead according to the 
order of the Priesthood. But some of our brethren die upon the 


458 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


ocean; they cannot be buried in a burying ground, but they are sewed 
up in canvas and cast into the sea, and perhaps in two minutes 
after they are in the bowels of the shark, yet those persons will 
come forth in the resurrection, and receive all the glory of which 
they are worthy, and be clothed upon with all the beauty of resur- 
rected Saints, as much so as if they had been laid away in a gold 
or silver coffin, and in a place expressly for burying the dead... . 
I am aware of the excited state of the feelings of the community; I 
have little to say about the cause of it. The meanness of the act 
is so far beneath my comprehension that I have not ventured to 
think much about it.” ? 


When he was delivering a funeral oration for his friend Jede- 
diah M. Grant, Brigham Young recalled to the people the funeral 
of Jesus. After speaking of the uselessness of mourning, he re- 
marked: “I have often reflected with regard to paying particular 
respect to that which is useless, to that which is nothing at all to 
us. And while waiting in the vestry, I was pondering upon how 
many bands of music attended Jesus to the tomb, upon what the 
procession was, how many wore crape, who mourned, and the 
situation of the mourners.’ Then he went on to say that he 
hoped that when his time came to die none would cry over his 
_body, “nor make any parade, but give me a good place where my 
bones can rest, that have been weary for many years, and have 
delighted to labor until nearly worn out; and then go home about 
your business, and think no more about me, except you think of 
me in the spirit world, as I do about Jedediah.” 

Brigham Young once told the people that he personally pre- 
ferred spiritual resurrection to temporal immortality, and he ex- 
pressed his feelings in these familiar terms: “If the Lord Al- 
mighty proffered to revoke the decree, “Dust thou art, and to dust 
thou shalt return,’ and say to me, ‘You can live for ever as you 
are;’ I should say, ‘Father, I want to ask a few questions upon this 
point. Shall I still be subject to the toothache, to the headache, 
to the chills and fever, and to all the diseases incident to the 
mortal body?’ ‘Oh, yes, but you can live, and never die.’ ‘Then I 
would have you, Father, to let the old decree stand good; I find 
no fault with your offer, it may be a good one; but I have the 
promise of receiving my body again—of this body coming up in 


1 Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, pp. 192-194. 


THE END 459 


the morning of the resurrection, and being re-united with the 
spirit, and being filled with the principles of immortality and 
eternal life. Thank you, Father, I would rather take a new body, 
and then I shall get a good set of new teeth. My sight, too, is 
failing; if I want to read, I cannot do it without using glasses; 
and if I wish to walk a few miles, I cannot do it without making 
myself sick; if I wish to go out on a journey, I am under the 
necessity of taking the utmost care of myself for fear of injuring 
my health; but when I get a new body, this will not be so; I shall 
be out of the reach of him that hath the power of death in his 
hands, for Jesus Christ will conquer that foe, and I shall receive 
a new body, which will be filled with eternal life, health, and 
beauty.” ” 

On Thursday, August 23, 1877, when he was seventy-six years 
old, Brigham Young suffered from an attack of cholera morbus, 
which is said to have been the result of eating’ green corn and 
peaches. On Friday the doctors, whom he had been willing to 
consult, in spite of his general opinions concerning the profession, 
said that he was convalescent, but he grew worse, and the next 
day, Saturday, his severe pain was relieved with morphine. Sun- 
day he fell into a coma and remained practically unconscious 
until Tuesday. Besides the four physicians who attended him, 
the leading brethren of the Church came to his bedside, lay hands 
upon him, and prayed for his recovery, but inflammation of the 
bowels had set in, and more reliance was placed on artificial 
respiration than on prayer. On Tuesday he remained unconscious, 
and many at the bedside thought he had died, but artificial respira- 
tion was used for more than nine hours. John W. Young gave 
his father the ordinance for the sick. Tuesday night the phy- 
sicians abandoned hope for his recovery; they tried injections of 
stimulants through the bowels, but the pain was so great that 
the patient cried out continually, and the treatment had to be 
discontinued. At four o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, 
August 29, 1877, he died. It is said that he murmured, “Joseph, 
Joseph, Joseph, Joseph,’ and added something else which was 
inaudible. But it is also said that his last words were, “I feel 
better.”’ 

The body was taken from the Lion House to the Tabernacle 
on Saturday morning, September 1, and until noon the following 


2 Journal of Discourses, vol, 1, p. 271. 


460 BRIGHAM YOUNG 


day long lines of people came to take a last look at their leader. 
People came in special trains to look at the corpse, and it was 
estimated that more than 25,000 Mormons visited the Tabernacle 
“during the day. 

Four years before his death Brigham Young wrote out the 
following directions for his own funeral: 


“T, Brigham Young, wish my funeral services to be conducted in 
the following manner: When I breathe my last, | wish my friends 
to put my body in as clean and wholesome a state as can con- 
veniently be done, and preserve the same for one, two, three or 
four days, or as long as my body can be preserved in good condition. 

“T want my coffin made of plain one-and-a-quarter redwood 
boards, not scrimped in length, but two inches longer than I would 
measure, and from two to three inches wider than is commonly 
made for a person of my breadth and size, and deep enough to place 
me on a little comfortable cotton bed, with a good suitable pillow in 
size and quality. My body dressed in my Temple clothing, and laid 
nicely into my coffin, and the coffin to have the appearance that if 
I wanted to turn a little to the right or left I should have plenty of 
room to do so; the lid can be made crowning. 

“At my interment I wish all my family present that can be con- 
veniently, and the male members to wear no crape on their hats or 
coats; the females to buy no black bonnets or dresses nor black veils, 
but if they have them they are at liberty to wear them. 

“And services may be permitted, as singing and a prayer offered, 
and if any of my friends wish to say a few words they are desired 
to do so. 

“And when they close their services, to take my remains on a bier 
and repair to the little burying ground which IJ have reserved on 
my lot east of the White House on the hill. On the southeast corner 
of this lot I have a vault built of mason work large enough to re- 
ceive my coffin, and that they may place in a box, if they choose, 
the same as the coffin—redwood—then place rocks over the vault 
sufficiently large to cover it, that the earth may be placed over it— 
as fine dry earth as can be had—to cover it until the walls of the 
little cemetery are hid, which will leave me in the southeast corner. 

“This vault ought to be roofed over with some kind of temporary 
roof. There let my earthly tabernacle rest in peace and comfort and 
have a good sleep until the morning of the first resurrection—no 
crying world mourning with any one. 

“T have done my work faithfully and in good faith. I wish this 
to be read at the funeral, provided that if I should die anywhere 
in the mountains I desire the above directions respecting my place 


: 












THE END 461 


of burial should be observed. But if I should live to get back to 
the church in Jackson County, Mo., I wish to be buried there. 
7 “BrIGHAM YOUNG, 
“President of the Church of Jesus Christ 
of Latter-Day Saints.” ® 


At 11:30 0n Sunday morning, September 2, the funeral services 
began. Most of Brigham Young’s seventeen surviving wives and 
forty-four surviving children were present, together with the rest 
of his family, numbering several hundred. The great Tabernacle 
organ played the Dead March from Saul and Mendelssohn’s 
Funeral March, as well as special hymns and a Mormon funeral 
march composed for the occasion. After the ceremonies four 
thousand people marched eight abreast to the grave. It is said 
that Mary Ann Angel, Brigham Young’s first wife, leaned on the 
arm of Amelia Folsom, his favorite. 

Brigham Young’s will was a complicated document. It estab- 
lished a trust fund for “the mothers of my children,’ as he 
phrased it legally. Mary Ann Angel and Amelia Folsom received 
together the residence he had built for Amelia, called the Guardo 
House, and known more familiarly as “Amelia’s Palace.’ The 
other wives remained in the Lion House. The mothers received 
proportionate shares of the estate, which is said to have amounted 

© to $2,000,000, and they were charged with the duty of contribut- 
ing to the support of their children. As the mothers died the 
estate was to be revalued, and the children were to receive their 
final shares. The administration of the estate was difficult. Be- 
sides their income from the mills and factories, the wives and 
their children also received individually parcels of real estate in 
Utah. The will also provided for a cemetery for the family, and 
the place of burial of each wife and her children was apportioned.: 

Two years after Brigham Young’s death some of the wives 
and children sued the executors of the estate, charging fraud. 
They claimed that the executors had turned over to the Church 
some of Brigham Young’s personal property. The Church proved 
that the property had been held in trust for it by Brigham Young, 
but the contesting heirs received as a compromise $75,000. ‘This 
compromise was arranged, because it was found impossible to 
determine exactly what was Brigham Young’s and what was the 
Church’s property. The charge was made that Brigham Young 


3 Death of President Young. Deseret News Publishing Co., 1877. 


462 BRIGHAM YOUNG 

had balanced his account with the Church in 1852 by telling the 
clerk to put the sum of $200,000 to his credit “for services 
rendered,” and that he had done the same in 1867 with the sum 
of $967,000. But he himself maintained in his sermons that his 
money and the Church’s money were kept separately, and that 
the accounts borrowed from each other but always paid back what 
was owed. | 

After the death of Brigham Young there was much speculation 
concerning its effect on the future of Mormonism. His sons, 
Brigham, Jr., and John W. Young, were anxious to succeed him, 
but the succession went to the President of the Twelve Apostles, 
according to the principle laid down by Brigham Young after 
the death of Joseph Smith, and which has been followed ever 
since. John Taylor automatically became President. 

One Sunday morning in October, 1877, the Rev. DeWitt 
Talmage paused in the interpretation of the Gospel of Christ 
long enough to offer this suggestion to the national government: 
“Now, my friends, now at the death of the Mormon chieftain, is 
the time for the United States Government to strike. Let as 
much of their rich lands be confiscated as will pay for their sub- 
jugation. -If the Government of the United States cannot stand 
the expense, let Salt Lake pay for it. Set Phil Sheridan after 
them. Give him enough troops, and he will teach all Utah that 
40 wives is 39 too many. Now is the time when they are less 
organized than they have been.” * But Brooklyn’s belligerent 
preacher was destined to be disappointed. The Church did not 
die with Brigham Young, as he and so many others hoped it 
would, and the hated polygamy was practised for almost fifteen 
years after the death of the Mormon Chieftain, 


4 New York Times, October 28, 1877. 


Bebhography 


(This does not claim to be a complete bibliography of Mormonism, 
which would require a book in itself. The following is merely a list 
of the books, pamphlets, and articles which were used as a basis for 
the material in this book. It is not a complete list of those works 
consulted, but merely a complete list of those from which material 
was used for quotations or suggestions. ) 


Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed at the Several Annual Ses- 
sions, of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, 
From 1851 to 1870 Inclusive. S. L. City, 1870. 

ARNOLD, Isaac N. Reminiscences of the Illinois Bar Forty Years 
Ago. Chicago, 1881. 

BaALLaNceE, C. The History of Peoria, Illinois. Peoria, 1870. 

Bancrort, Husert Howe. History of Califormia, vol. 5. San 
Francisco, 1886. 

Bancrort, Husert Howe. History of Utah. San Francisco, 1891. 

BartLett, DanieL H. C. The Mormons or Latter-Day Saints. 
London, I9gI1I. 

Bays, ELtpEr Davis H. The Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism 
Examined and Refuted. St. Louis, 1897. 

BENNETT, JOHN C. The History of the Saints; or, An Exposé of 
Joe Smith and Mormonism. Boston, 1842. 

Berry, Hon. OrvittE F. The Mormon Settlements in Illinois. 
Illinois State Historical Library, No. 11. Springfield, 1906. 

Birp, GrorGE Ropsert. Tenderfoot Days in Territorial Utah. 
Boston, 1918. 

Birce, Juttus C. The Awakening of the Desert. Boston, 1912. 

BLACKMAN, Emity C. History of Susquehanna County, Pennsyl- 
vania. Phila., 1873. 

Braden-Kelly Debate. St. Louis, 1884. 

BroucH, CHARLES HiLLMAN. Irrigation in Utah. Johns Hopkins 
Press, 1898. 

Brown, BENJAMIN. Testimonies for the Truth. Liverpool, 1853. 

Brown, Henry. The History of Illinois. New York, 1844. 

Brown, LeonarD. History of Whitingham. Brattleboro, Vermont, 
1886. 

Brown, WILLIAM GarRrRoTT. Stephen Arnold Douglas. Boston, 
aie 463 


464 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Browne, ALBert G. “The Utah Expedition.” Atlantic Monthly, 
March, April, May, 1859. 

Bucuanan, JAMES. Works, vols. X and XII. Philadelphia, rgto. 

Bucxtey, J. M. ‘“Faith-healing and Kindred Phenomena.” The 
Century, June, 1886. 

Burnett, Peter H. Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer. 
New York, 1880. 

Burton, IsaseL. The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton. 
London, 1893. 

Burton, Str Ricuarp F. The City of the Saints. London, 1862. 

Burton. Voyages du Capitaine Burton. Abridged by Belin De 
Launay. Paris, 1870. 

CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER. Delusions, An Analysis of the Book of 
Mormon. Boston, 1832. 

CANNON, FRANK J. and Knapp, Georce L. Brigham Young and 
His Mormon Empire. New York, 1913. 

CANNON, GEorGE Q. The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet. 
S. L. City, 1888. 

Caswa.L, Henry. The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century. Lon- 
don, 1843. 

Census, Bureau or. feligious Bodies, 1916. Washington, 1919. 

CHANDLEsS, WILLIAM. A Visit to Salt Lake. London, 1857. 

CLARK, Rev. JoHN A. Gleanings by the Way. New York, 1842. 

CLayTton, WiLiiAM. William Clayton’s Journal. S. L. City, 
1921. 

CLEMENS, SAMUEL L. Roughing It. New York, 1903. 

Cowtey, Marruias F. Prophets and Patriarchs of the Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Chattanooga, Tenn. 

DAVENPORT, FREDERICK Morcan. Primitive Traits in Religious 
Revivals. New York, 1906. 

De Leon, Epwin. Thirty Years of My Life on Three Continents. 
London, 1890. 

Deseret News. Various dates. 

Dixon, Witt1AM HepwortH. New America. London, 1867. 

Doctrine and Covenants, The Book of. S. L. City, 1885. 

DorcHESTER, DANIEL. The Problem of Religious Progress. New 
York, 1881. 

ERICKSEN, EpHrAimM Epwarp. The Psychological and Ethical 
Aspects of Mormon Group Life. University of Chicago Press, 
1923. 

FINNEY, CHarLes G. Memoirs. New York, 1876. 

Forp, Governor Tuomas. A History of Illinois. Chicago, 1854. 

Fragments of Experience. S. L. City, 1882. 

FREMONT, JOHN CHARLES. Memoirs of My Life. New York, 1887. 

FREMONT, JOHN CHARLES. Proceedings of the Court Martial in 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 465 


the Trial of Lieutenant-Colonel Frémont. Exec. Document 33, 
30th Congress, ist Session. 

GILLILAN, JAMES Davin. Thomas Corwin Iliff. New York, 1919. 

Gospel Herald. Voree, Wisconsin, 1848. 

Governors’ Letter-Books 18 40- 1853. Illinois State Hist. Library. 
Springfield, 1911. 

GRANT, J. M. Three Letters to the New York Herald. Pamphlet 
published from articles in New York Herald of March 9, April 
8, April 25, 1852. 

GREELEY, Horace. An Overland Journey. New York, 1860. 

GREENE, JoHN P. Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons 
from the State of Missouri. 18309. 

Grecc, THomas. The Prophet of Palmyra. New York, 1890. 

Gunnison, Lizut. J. W. The Mormons. Philadelphia, 1852. 

HAVEN, CHARLOTTE. ‘“‘A Girl’s Letters from Nauvoo.” Overland 
Monthly, Dec., 1890. 

HickmMAN, Biti. Brigham’s Destroying Angel. New York, 1872. 

Howe, E. D. Mormonism Unveiled. Painesville, Ohio, 1834. 

Hype, Joun, Jr. Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs. New 
York, 1857. 

Illinois, The History of Adams County, Chicago, 1879. 

Inside of Mormonism, The. S. L. City, 1903. 

James, Witit1AmM. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New 
York, 1902. 

JarMAN, W. Uncle Sam’s Abscess, or Hell upon Earth for U.S. 
Exeter, England, 1884. 

Jenson, ANDREW. The Historical Record, vols. 5-8. S. L. City, 
1886. 

Jittson, CLARK. Green Leaves from Whitingham, Vermont. 1894. 

JouHnston, Witi1AM Preston. The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney 
Johnston. New York, 1878. 

Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young, President of the Church 
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, His Two Counsellors, The 
Twelve Apostles and Others, vols. 1-19. Liverpool, 1854-1878. 

Kang, Tuomas L. The Mormons. Philadelphia, 1850. 

KAUFFMAN, Rutu and Recinatp WricHt. The Latter Day Saints. 
London, I912. 

KENNEpY, J. H. Early Days of Mormonism. New York, 1888. 

Kennepy, J. H. “The Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.” 
Magazine of Western History, March, 1890. 

Knicut, Lyp1a. Lydia Knight’s History. S. L. City, 1883. 

Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, vols. 1-3. Kirtland, 
‘Ohio, 1834-1837. 

Leavitt, M. B. Fifty Years in Theatrical Management. New 
York, 1912. 


/ 


466 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Lee, JoHN DoyLe. Mormonism Unveiled. St. Louis, 1891. 

Lee Trial!, The. S. L. City, 1875. 

LrEGLER, Henry E. A Moses of the Mormons. |James J. Strang. | 
Michigan Pioneer and Hist. Society, vol. 32. Lansing, Mich., 
1903. 

Linpsay, JOHN S. The Mormons and the Theatre. S. L. City, 
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Linn, WILLIAM ALEXANDER. The Story of the Mormons. New 
York, 1902. 

LittLeE, JAMES A. From Kiriland to Salt Lake City. S. L. City, 
1890. 

LITTLEFIELD, LYMAN OMER. Rentiniscences of Latter-Day Saints. 
Logan, Utah, 1888. 

McCartTHy, Justin. “Brigham Young.” The Galaxy, Feb., 1870. 

Mack, Soromon. A Narrative of the Life of Solomon Mack. 
(n.d. About 1810.) 

MarryAtT, CAPT. FREDERICK. The Travels and Adventures of Mon- 
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MATHER, FreDERIC G. “The Early Days of Mormonism.” Lippin- 
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Millennial Star. Vols. 1-40. Liverpool and London. 

Missouri, The Commonwealth of. St. Louis, 1877. 

Missouri, Copy of a Memorial to the Legislature of. 

Mormon, Book of. First edition. Palmyra, New York, 1830. 

Mountain Meadows Massacre. Senate Exec. Document 42, 36th 
Congress, Ist session. 

Nauvoo Expositor. Only issue published, June 7, 1844, Nauvoo, 
Illinois. 

Nauvoo Neighbor. Dec. 27, 1843 to Oct. 1, 1845. Nauvoo, Illinois. 

Nauvoo Rustler. July 1, 1890-April 21, 1891. Nauvoo, Illinois. 

Niles’ National Register. ‘Various numbers from 1840-1880. 

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Polk, James K., The Diary of. Chicago, 1910. 

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the Univ. of Wisconsin, No. 220, History Series, vol. 1, no. 4. 
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Chicago, 1888. 

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ogy, vol. 28, no. 3, July, 1917. 

Quincy, JostAH. Figures of the Past. Boston, 1883. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 467 


Remy, JuLes. A Journey to Great Salt Lake City. London, 1861. 

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of the Presidents. Vols. 5, 7, 8,9. Washington, 1808. 

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Roserts, BrigHAM H. The Mormon Battalion. S. L. City, 1919. 

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and 1909. 

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Rosrnson, Puit. Sinners and Saints. Boston, 1883. 

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field. 

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‘ 
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f pea yy 

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5 


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INDEX 


Aaronic Priesthood, 36 

Abolitionists, 174-175 

Abraham, Book of, 64 

Adams, Augusta, 326 

Adams, Dr. David, 278 

Adams, George A., 197 

Adams, Maude, 444 

Adultery, Mormon attitude on, 297- 


2 

Albert, Prince, 113, 313 

Alexander, Col., 392-393 

Alger, Fanny, 146 

Allen, Capt. James, 213-214, 216, 217 

Alley, Margaret Maria, 327 

Amberly, Viscount, quoted, vii 

“Amelia’s Palace,” 330 

Angel, Mary Ann, 89, 325-326, 332, 
334, 461 

Angell, Truman O., 448 

Apostates, 400 

Apostles, The Twelve, 91, 104, I10, 
162, 172, IQI-I92, 194, 202, 235-236 

Arapeen (Indian Chief), 246 

Athenagoras, 284. 

Aurelius, N. Y., 7. 


Babbitt, Almon W., 202 

Ballantyne, Jane, 138 

Band, Mormon brass, 209, 211 

Banks, Joseph, 436 

Baptism, Infant, 61 

Baptiste, John, 456 

Barney, Harriet, 329 

Barnum, P. T., 428 

Barrett, Lawrence, 444 

Battalion, Mormon, 213-219, 228, 234, 
249, 250 

Beaver Island, 197, 198, 199 

Bedford, Thomas, 198 

Bee-Hive House, 350 

Bell, Mrs. Florence, 445 

Beman, Louisa, 136, 146, 327 

Bennet, James Arlington, 154-155 

Bennett, John C., 120-121, 122, 123, 
129, 143-144, 147 

Benson, A. G.; 207 

Bernhisel, Dr., 296 


471 


Bible, The, 46-47, 48, 49, 51 53, 57, 
129, 130-131, 149, 249, 280, 290, 291- 
292, 208, 328-329 

Bidamon, L. C., 195 

Bigelow, Lucy, 328 

Bigelow, Mary Jane, 328 

Bird, William, 400 

Bishop, Gladden, 294-206 

Bishop, W. W., footnote, 401, 412 

Blood Atonement, Theory of, 402-405 

Blossom, Edward, 146 

Boggs, Gov. Lillburn W., 105, 126, 


129 

Bowker, Martha, 327 

Brannan, Samuel, 207, 228, 229, 230 

Brewster, James Collins, 85 

Bridger, Jim, 230 

Hoel Judge Perry E., 378, 379- 
380 

Brockman, Rev. Thomas S., 202 

Brown, John, 183 

Brown, Pelatiah, 211 

Buchanan, James, 382-383, 384, 385, 
387, 391, 392, 304, 305 

Bullock, ‘Th 
ullock, omas, 203, 

Bump, Jacob, 89 sy 

Burgess, Eliza, 328-329 

Burnett, Peter H., 106 

Burroughs, Stephen, 21 

Burrows, Senator, 283, 3390 

Burton, Sir Richard F., quoted, 48-49, 
220-221, 231-232, 258, 250, 261, 270, 
349-350, 357-358, 422-423, 454 

Burton, Col. R. T., 436 

Butterfield, Josiah, 151 


Cabet, Etienne, 203-204 

Cahoon, Reynolds, 175 

Calhoun, John C., 157-159 

California, 164, 206, 210, 217, 218, 219, 
228, 229, 230, 249, 255, 256, 257 

Camp of Israei, 210 

Campbell, Alexander, 58 

Campbellism, 58, 60, 77 

Cannon, George Q., 209, 261, 375 

Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 15 


472 


Carter, Naamah Kendel Jenkins, 328 
Carthage, Illinois, 172, 173 

Cass, Lewis, 157 

Celsus, 292-293 

Chandler, Michael H., 78 

Charter, Nauvoo, I19, 120, 125, 172- 


173 

Chicago, Illinois, 122 

Chicago Silver Mining Co., 432 

Christ, Followers of, 56. 

Civil War, 159-160, 360-361, 395-397 

Clawson, Hiram B., 444 

Clay, Henry, 157, 204-205 

Clayton, Ruth, 135, 136 

Clayton, William, 134, 135-136, 142, 
2I0, 2114220, 221, 222, 224 e235). 220) 
227, 233, 234, 235 

Cleveland, Sarah M., 146 

Colesville, N. Y., 67 

Colfax, Schuyler, 261, 334-335, 357 

Coltrin, Zebedee, 235 

Columbia, Penn., 13 

Common Council, 
170, 172-173, 176 

Communism, among Mormons, 419 

Conneaut, Ohio, 57 

Connor, General, 248, 360 

Cook, Harriet Elizabeth Campbell, 326 

Cook, Richard, 435 

Cooper, James G., 445 

Codperation among Mormons, 
258, 436-441 

Cottin, Mme., 209 

Cowdery, Oliver, 35-36, 36-37, 38, 39, 
40, 42, 44, 45, 65, 76, 95 

Cowles, Elvira W., 146 

Cradlebaugh, Judge, 401, 411 

Craig, C. L., 306 

Crickets, 240-241 

Crosby, Rev. Dr., 356 

Cumorah, Hill of, 27, 48 

Cumming, Gov. Alfred, 390, 391, 394 


Dame, William C., 408 

Dancing, Mormon attitude on, 
209, 212, 225, 353-354, 442-443 

Danites, The, 102-103 

Davenport, E. L., 444 

Dawson, John W., 306 

Decker, Clara, 326, 347-348 

Decker, Lucy Ann, 326, 338 

Dee, James L., 331, 332 

De Leon, Edwin, 148 

De Smet, Father, 229 

Democratic Party, 119, 123, 216, 385 

Deseret Alphabet, 261 


Nauvoo, 119-120, 


239; 


5-6, 


INDEX 


Deseret Dramatic Association, 443, 
444 

Deseret News, 364, 380 

Deseret, State of, 269-270 

Deseret Telegraph Co., 428 

Deseret University, 261 

Discourses, Journal of, .x, 261, 313, 
315 

Divorce, suit against Brigham Young 
for, 331-333 

Dixon, William Hepworth, 338-3309, 


447 
Doniphan, A. W., 103, 106 
Douglas, Stephen A., 120, 123, 127- 
128, 204, 385 
Dow, Lorenzo, 9-10 
Downshire, Marquis of, 154 
Drummond, Judge W. W., 378, 380-381 
Dunham, Jonathan, 171 


Edmunds Act, 364, 366, 367 

Education, Mormon view of, 258-264, 
272-273 

Edwards, Jonathan, 56 

Egan, Howard, 297 

Elizabeth, or The Exiles of Siberia, 


209 
Ells, Hannah, 146 
Emigration, Mormon system of, III- 
113, 253-254, 270-279, 399 
Endowment ceremony, 284-286, 357, 


375 

Endowment House, 284, 285, 357, 375 

Endowment oath, 285-2 

Endowment robe, 285 

Esdras, Book of, 85 

Expositor, The Mormon, 313 

Expositor, Nauvoo, 165-166, 169-171, 
175 

Famine, among Mormons, 257-258, 
3 

Far West, Missouri, 95, 99 

Fayette, N. Y., 36, 65 

Fenton, Lizzie, 335-336 

Field, Kate, 187, 358-359 

Fillmore, Millard, 270 

Finney, Charles G., 52-53 

Fitch, Thomas, 362-364 

Floyd, John B., 384-385 

Folsom, Amelia, 308, 320-331, 337, 
347, 353, 354, 461 
oraker, Senator, 282-283, 371 

Ford, Gov. Thomas C., 120, 153, 170, 
173, 174, 175, 176-177,.179, 181, 183- 
184, 187, 202 


INDEX 


Forney, Dr. J., 410 

Forquer, George, 177 

Franklin, Benjamin, 291 

Free, Emmeline, 149, 326, 337, 345 
Frémont, John C., vi, 204, 229, 231, 


385 
Freud, Dr. Sigmund, 147 
Frost, Olive, 146, 326 
Fulmer, John S., 202 
Fullmer, Desdemona W., 136, 146 


Garfield, James A., 232 

Gates, Susa Young, 352 

Genealogy among Mormons, 325 
Gibbon, Edward, quoted, viii, x, 283- 


284 

Gildersleeve, Mrs. M. J., 354 

Gladdenites, 294-296 

Godbe, W. S., 430-431, 432 

Godbeite Rebellion, 430-433, 437 

Gold, Discovery of, 229, 249; effect 
on Mormons, 249-257, 271, 426 

Goodmundson, Goodmund, 43 

Gospel Herald, 198 

Grant, Jedediah M., 288, 292, 398, 390, 
402, 405, 455, 458 

Grant, Ulysses S., 361, 362-363, 453 

Grasshoppers, 240-241, 257 

Grecian Bend, 317-318 

Green, Mrs. John P., 11 

Green, Rev. John P., 11, 171 

Griffin, Rev. E. D., 56-57 

Gulls, sea, 241 


Haigham, Elizabeth, 138 

Haight, Isaac C., 304, 408, 412-413, 
414 

Hale, Isaac, 29, 33 

Hand-cart emigration, 274-278 

Harding, Gov. S. S., 436 

Harmon, Appleton, 226 

Harmony, Penn., 29, 35 

Harney, General, 385-386 

Harris, George W., 95, 170 

Harris, Lucinda, 146 

Harris, Martin, 31-32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 
40, 4I, 42, 44, 45, 65, 68, 81, 85-86 

Harris, Mrs, Martin, 32, 33, 34 

Harris, Preserved, 33 

Harrison, E. L. T., 430-431 

Harrison, William Henry, 161, 165 

Hayne, Julia Deane, 335, 445 

Healing, 69, 81, I10, III, 208-209 

Hemmenway, Charles W., 296 

Hendrix, Daniel, 39 

Herne, James A., 445 


473 


Hesse-Darmstadt, Philip, Landgrave 
of, 262 

Heywood, Joseph L., 202 

Hickman, Bill, 213, 236-237, 381, 4o01- 
402, 452 

Higbee, Francis M., 171 

Higbee, John M., 408, 414 

Hill, Mrs. Cecilia, 107 

Historical Record, The, 146 

Hoge, Joseph P., 123-124 

Hooper, William H., 290, 364 

Hopkinton, Mass., 4 

Howe, E. D., 59 

Howe, Nabby, 4 

Huneker, James, quoted, 15 

Huntington, Prescinda L., 146 

Huntington, Zina D., 146, 327, 338 

Hurlburt, Philaster, 59 

Hyde, John, 321, 336 

Hyde, Orson, 188, 194, 190, 204, 213, 
251, 280, 292, 203, 313 


Icarian Community, 203-204 

Illinois, condition of in 1844, 174-175 

Indians, Mormon attitude towards, 47, 
97, I00-10I, 206, 2II, 212-213, 235, 
243-248; and Mountain Meadows 
Massacre, 408, 409, 410, 413 

Ingersoll, Peter, 29, 31 

Irrigation, 239 

Irwin, Mr. and Mrs. Selden, 444 


Jackson County, Missouri, 77, 96-97, 108 
Jacobs, Henry, 327-328 

James, William, quoted, viii, 47, 62 
Johnson, Almera W., 146 

Johnson, Nephi, 416 

Johnson, Richard M., 157 

Johnston, Albert Sidney, 386, 391-3905 
Journal of Discourses, x, 261, 313, 315” 
Justin Martyr, 284 


Kane, Thomas L., 203, 210, footnote 
211, 212-213, 390 

Kelsey, E. B., 350 

Kendall, Amos, 207, 215 

Kidd, Captain, 21-22 

Kimball, Ellen Saunders, 219 

Kimball, Heber C., 6, 13, 14, I10-11T, 
112, 136, 139-140, 142, 144, 2II, 219, 
224, 227, 239, 241-242, 246, 250, 256, 
261, 265, 266, 288, 280, 296, 302-303, 
304, 305, 312, 314, 319, 325, 335, 340, 
343, 360, 373, 375, 379, 380, 381, 385, 
si 388, 399, 409, 424-425, 443, 455- 
4 


474. 


Kimball, Helen Mar, 139, 146 

Kimball, Sister M. H., 86 

Kimball, Vilate, 14, 139-140, 295 

Kinney, Judge J. T., 380 

Kirtland, Ohio, 13, 14, 58, 60, 71, 72, 
76, 77, 81 

Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Bank- 
ing Co., 92-94, 250 

Knight, Lydia, 83 

Knight, Newell, 60, 83 


Laban, Sword of, 40 

Lambert, Charles, 203 

Larising, “R.R., 61 

Latter-day Saints, Church of Jesus 
Christ of, organization of, 65; cor- 
poration dissolved, 366 

Law of the Lord, The Book of the, 
197, 198 and footnote 

Law, William, 124, 165, 171, 172 

Lawrence, Maria, 146, 327 

Lawrence, Sarah, 146 

Lee, John D., 148-149, 210, 219, 304, 
344-345, 401, 407-417, 452 

Lincoln, Abraham, 120, 176, 361, 396, 


397 
Lindsay, John S., 445 
Lion House, 350 : 
Little, J. C., 214-215 
Littlefield, Lyman Omer, 141 
Lott, Malissa, 146 
Lovejoy, Rev. Elijah P., 174-175 
Lowe, Judge David B., 332 
Lucas, Samuel D., 103 
Luther, Martin, 261-262 
Lynne, Thomas A., 444 
Lyon, Judge William P., 196 


McCarthy, Justin, 300 
McGuffie, James, 409-410 
McKean, Judge, 332, 452-453 
McLean, H. H., 405-406 
McLean, Mrs. H. H., 405-406 
Mack, Solomon, 17-18 
Manchester, N. Y., 20, 27 
Manhard, David, 118 
Manifesto, Woodruff, 367 
Manuscript, The, Found, 58 
Markham, Colonel, 224 
Marsh, Thomas B., 104 
Marshall, James W., 249 
Masonry, Free, 61-62, 283 
Melchisedek Priesthood, 36 
Mendon, N. Y., 8, 14 
Mexican War, 214-219 
Millennium, The, 83-84 


INDEX 


Millennial Star, The, 111, 340, 341 

Millerites, 56, 83 

Miller, William, 56 

Mining in Utah, 431-432 

Missionaries, Mormon, 90-91, 110-113, 
271-272, 306 

Missouri, Persecution of Mormons in, 
97, 99-108 

Monroe, James, 297 

Moon, Margaret, 136 

Moore, Col. John, 123 

Mormon Battalion, see Battalion 

Mormon, Book of, 8, 11, 12, 31, 32, 
34, 36, 37, 38-39, 45, 46, 47-51, 53, 
57-61, 63, 65, 68, 86, 98, Itt, 113, 
244, 245, 249, 261, 337, 430 

Mormon Expositor, The, 313 

Mormon, meaning of the name, 48 

Mormonism, reasons for spread of, 73- 
74 

Mormonism Unveiled, 59 

Mormons, number of, vii 

Moroni, 26-27, 30, 48 

Morris, Joseph, 433-436 

Morse, Justus A., 152-153 

Moses, Visions of, 64 

Mountain fever, 227-228 

Mountain Meadows, description of, 
407 


Nauvoo Charter, see Charter 
Nauvoo Common Council, see Com- 
mon 
Nauvoo Expositor, see Expositor 
Nauvoo House, 114-115, 116, 192 
Nauvoo, Illinois, 109-110, 149; expul- 
sion of Mormons from, 200-205 
Nauvoo Legion, 119, 121-122, 171, 175 
Nauvoo Neighbor, 161-162, 171, 182 
Neilson, Adelaide, 444 
Noah, Brigham Young on, 186 
Noon, Sarah, 139 


Oakley, Mary A., 138 
Oberlin College, 59 
Orderville, 441 

Ordination, 61 

Oregon, 164, 205, 206, 215 
Organ, Mormon, 448 


Pack, John, 234-235 

Page, Hiram, 30, 44 

Paine, Tom, 56 

Palmyra, N. Y., 20, 27, 38, 48, 65 
Parkhurst, Rev. Dr., 356-357 
Parrish, William, 400-401 


EE {1 Se ee 





INDEX 


Partridge, Eliza M., 132, 146 

et Emily Dow, 132, 146, 326, 
33 

Pastor, Tony, 444 

Patten, David W., 102-103, 104 

Patterson & Lambdin, 58, 59 

Pauncefort, George, 444-445 

Penrose, Romania B., 303 

Perpetual Emigration Fund, 270-271, 


3 

Philip, Landgrave of Hesse-Darm- 
stadt, 262 

Pierce, Franklin, 380, 382, 387 

Pierce, Margaret, 327 

Pioneer Day, 248-249, 386 

Pittsburgh, Penn., 58, 59, 194 

Planché, J. R., 444 

Polk, James K., 207, 214, 215-216 

Polygamy, Anti- Polygamy literature, 
viii, 306-307; at Kirtland, 95-06, 
129; at Nauvoo, 129-150, 166-169, 
210, 261-262, 273, 274; in Utah, 280- 
374; agitation against, 350-350; 
laws against, 359-3607; abolition of, 
367-373; manifesto abolishing, 367: 
attitude of younger generation to- 
wards, 372-373 

Pond, Major J. B., 358 

Pope, Alexander, 50 

Pope, Judge, 126 

Pratt, Orson, 25, 46, 51, 65, 70, 143- 
144, 188, 208, 224, 226, 258, 259-260, 
263, 281, 291-292, 298, 354-355 

Pratt, Parley Parker, 69-70, 103, 105, 
107, III, 154, 162, 187-188, 202, 204, 
231, 280, 342, 405-406 

Pratt, Sarah, 143-144, 147 

Prentice, George D., 110, 309, 322 

Priest, Josiah, 61 

Prophets, School of, 363 

Prostitution, Mormon attitude on, 298- 
300 


Quincy, Illinois, 109 

Quincy, Josiah, quoted, 78-79, I19, 122 

Reformation, The, in the Mormon 
Church, 398-405 

Regeneration, 61 

Remy, Jules, 381 

Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ 
of Latter-day Saints, 129, 195 

Republican Party, 385 

Revivals, Religious, 54-55 

Reynolds, George, 282, 359-360 

Richards, Franklin, 203 


475 


Richards, Rhoda, 146 

Richards, Willard, 175, 179, 181, 210, 
240, 265 

Rigdon, Nancy, 144-145, 189 

Rigdon, Sidney, 58-59, 60, 70-71, 72, 
76, 77, 81, 84, 86, 94, 99, IOI, 103, 
118, 144, 145, 161, 188-192, 193- 195 

Riley, Woodbridge, quoted, 42, 45, 279 

Roberts, Brigham H., 127, 366, 399 

Roberts, Sydney, 85 

Robinson, Ebenezer, 116 

Robinson, Phil, 344, 358, 368-369 

Rochester Rappers, 50 

eteorep Orrin Porter, 65, 126, 175, 
17 

Rockwood, Ellen, 327 

Rollins, Mary Elizabeth, 146 

Ross, Clarissa, 326 

Ryder, Simonds, 84-85 


Salt Lake Valley, 228-229, 230, 23I- 


233 

“Salt Sermon,” 101-102 

Sanderson, Dr., 218 

Schroeder, Theodore, 356 

Scott, General Winfield, 384 

Seixas, Mr., 79 

Sessions, Sylvia, 146 

Seward, William H., v 

Shaffer, J. Wilson, 361 

Shakers, 83 

Shakespeare, William, 50 

Sharon, Vermont, 16 

Sharp, "Thomas rat 187 

Shaw, George Bernard, quoted, 269 

Sheffer, Abigail, 344 

Sheffer, Rachel ete 344, 417 

Sherburn, Niv¥e 

Sheridan, Phil, ae 

Sinclair, Judge, 396 

Slavery, Mormon attitude on, 97, 99, 
100, 163 

Smith, Asahel, 17, 67 

Smith, Don Carlos, 67 

Smith, Emma Hale, 29, 33, 36-37, 69, 
72, 80, 130, 131-133, 134, 135, 146, 
147, 105, 178, 182, 195, 281 

Smith, George A., 90-91, 130, 144, 
204, 246, 207, 414 

Smith, Hyrum, 23, 36, 39, 44, 73, 86, 
117, 124, 134, 136, 170, 171, 172, 175, 
176, 177-178, 181, 182, 285 

Smith, Jason, 18 

Smith, John, 67 

Smith, Joseph, Jr., birth and ancestry, 
16-19; youth, 20-23; education, 21; 


476 


money digger, 22-23, 25, 20, 251; 
religious influences in youth, 23, 54; 
first visions, 23-27; finds golden 
plates, 27-28, 29; translates Book of 
Mormon, 31-37, 60; motives for his 
visions, 62-64; drunkenness of, 66- 
67, 92, 153; tarred and feathered, 
77; as a business man, 92-904, I17; 
flees from Kirtland, 94-95; jailed in 
Missouri, 103, 105-106; politician, 
119-120; general, 121-122, 171; can- 
didate for President of U. S., 150- 
I5I, 156-165; personal characteristics 
of, 151-154; mayor of Nauvoo, 122, 
170; assassination of, 177-179, 285; 
martyr, 183; resurrection of, 184- 
187; wives, number of, 146; his 
opinion of Brigham Young, 14; 
revelations of, 36, 38, 40, 62, 65, 71, 
72, 74; 76, 79; 81, 83-84, OI, I13- 
II5, 124, 130-132, 133, 134-135, 147, 
159-160, 212, 419 

Smith, Joseph, Sen., 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 
27, 28, 20, 44, 05, 67, 76, 126 

Smith, Joseph, son of the Prophet, 


195 

Smith, Joseph F’., 324, 330, 360-372 

Smith, Lucy Mack, 18-19, 25, 33-35, 
61, 65, 181, 195 

Smith, Robert, 16 

Smith, Samuel H., 11, 23, 36,. 44, 68 

Smith, Sophronia, 23 

Smith, T. L. (“Pegleg’’), 230 

Smith, William, 125, 152, 195 

Smithsonian Institution, 199 

Smoot Investigation Committee, 282- 
283, 339, 369-372 

Smoot, Reed, 206, 282 

Snively, Susan, 327 

Snow, Eliza R., 103, 113, 121, 136, 
138, 146, 182, 190, 217, 236, 328 

Snow, Erastus, 230, 354 

Snow, Lorenzo, 113, 138, 259, 328 

Snyder, Col. Adam W., 123 

Social Hall, 353, 443 

Sothern, E. A., 444 

Southey, Robert, quoted, 53-54 

Spalding, John, 59-60 

Spalding, Solomon, 57-60 

Stafford, William, 22 

Stakes of Zion, 421-422 

Star, The Millennial, 111, 340, 341 

Stenhouse, T. B. H., 261 

Steptoe, Col. E. J., 380 

Stevenson, Edward, 20-21, 86, 180 

Stoal, Josiah, 29 


INDEX 


Stokes, William, 416-417 
Strang, James Jesse, 195-199 
Supreme Court, U. S., 359-360 
Sutter, Captain, 249 


Talmage, Rev. DeWitt, 356, 462 

Tanner, John, 91-92 

Taylor, John, 137-138, 177-178, 179, 
181, 182, 199, 280-281, 368, 378, 387- 


388, 434, 462 
Taylor, Zachary, 214, 379 


ae Jackson County, Missouri, 
I 

Temple, Kirtland, 91-92 

Temple, Nauvoo, 113-114, 115-116, 


192, 201-202, 203 
Temple, Salt Lake, 234, 448-450 
Tertullian, 284 
Theater, Salt Lake, 6, 444-447 
Times and Seasons, 122, 161, 162 
Tithing, 74-76, 118, 425 
Tongues, Gift of, 14, 81 
Topsfield, Mass., 16 
Towle, Nancy, 72 
Tribune, Salt Lake, 366, 432 
Trinity, The, 61 
Trumbull, Lyman, 359, 361 
Twain, Mark, quoted, 43, 45, 48, 51, 
320, 322, 342, 358-359 
Twiss, John Saunders, 328 
Tyler, Andrews, 73 
Tyler, John, 165 


Union Pacific Railroad, 227, 426, 427 

United Order of Enoch, 74-75, 76, 
438-441 

Urim and Thummim, 26, 27, 30, 
33, 34, 35, 40, 134 

Utah Magazine, The, 430 , 

Utah Railroad, 428 | 

Utah, Territory of, 270; population 
of, 270, 271, 273; admission of as 
state, 362, 364 


32- 


Van Buren, Martin, 107, 157, 158, 164 
Van Cott, Mary, 331 

Van Viiet, Capt., 380, 390 

Victoria, Queen, I13, 194, 313 
Voree, Wisconsin, 197, 198 

Vose, Ruth D., 146 


Walker, Cyrus, 123-124 

Walker (Indian Chief), 246-247 
Walker Brothers, 429-430 
Walker, Lucy, 140-143, 146 
Wall, William, 151 





INDEX 


Ward, Artemus, 212, 279, 321, 322, 
323-324, 343-344, 373-374, 444, 447 

Warren, Lieut. Gouverneur K., foot- 
note, 240 

Warsaw Signal, 173-174, 187 

Washington Monument, 378 

Watt, G. D., 289, 315 

Wells, Daniel FH, 345; 363, 378-379, 


444 
Wentworth, Alexander, 198 
Western, Lucille, 445 
Whig Party, IIQ-120, 123, 124 
Whitesides, Morris, 327 
Whitingham, Vermont, 3 
Whitmer, Christian, 37, 44, 65 
Whitmer, David, 37, 39, 40, 41-42, 44, 
45, 65, 89, 92 
Whitmer, Peter, 36, 44, 65 
Whitney, Newel K., 118, 
281 
Whitney, Orson F., 340, 343 
Whitney, Sarah Ann, 146 
Whittling, 200-201 
Wife No. 19, 333 
Wilkinson, Jemima, 83 
Willoughby University, 120 
Winchester, Maria, 146 
Winter Quarters, 211-212, 213, 217, 
219, 234, 235, 248, 276 
Witnesses, The Testimony of Eight, 


134-135, 


A4 
Witnesses, The Testimony of Three, 


40- 

Woodruff, Wilford, 110, 112, 188, 190, 
231, 233, 273, 367, 368, 360, 433-434, 
448, 450 

Woodworth, Flora Ann, 146 

Word of Wisdom, 79-81 

Works, Asa, 7 

Works, Jerusha, 7 

Works, Miriam, 7, 14, 325, 334 

Wyl, Dr. W., 147 and footnote, 153, 
335 


Young, Ann Eliza, 331-333, 335, 347, 
348, 350-351, 358 | 
oung, Brigham, birth and ancestry, 
3-6; youth and education, 4-7; 
painter and glazier, 7; and Book of 
Mormon, 8, 11-12; religious senti- 
ments of in youth, 8-11, 54; bap- 
tized into Mormon Church, 13; first 
meeting with Joseph Smith, 13-14; 
faith in Joseph Smith, 86-89, 192- 
193, 420; life at Kirtland, 80, 91, 
02; as a missionary, 90-9I, II0-I13, 


477 


162; second marriage, 89; flees 
from Kirtland, 94; leads exodus 
from Missouri, 104-105; mission to 
England, rti-113; first reaction to 
polygamy, 136-137; succession to 
Presidency of Church, 188-199; dis- 
agreement with Joseph Smith, 192; 
domination of Mormons by, 210- 
2ii, 264, 265, 379, 423, 424, 431-433; 
revelations of, 212; attitude of his 
people towards, 219, 204, 265, 266, 
312, 423, 424-425; plans Salt Lake 
City, 233-234; elected President, 
Prophet, Seer and Revelator, 235; 
economic policy of, 239, 254, 258, 
388, 418-421, 428-430; education, his 
views on, 278-270, 440-441; family 
life of, 308, 309, 315-316, 330-331, 
336, 345-354; women, his attitude 
towards, 309-310, 325, 346-347; 
wives, number of, 321-322, 333-334; 
income of, 331; children, number 
and names of, 337; defiance of gov- 
ernment by, 360, 382, 386-390, 301, 
394; Superintendent of Indian Af- 
fairs, 410; wealth of, 419-420; ar- 
rest of, 452-453; personal appear- 
ance of, 453-454; death of, 450; 
funeral instructions of, 460-461; 
will of, 461-462 

Young, Brigham, Sermons of: On 
number of his wives, ix-x, 321-322; 
on economy in dress, 4-5, 313-320; 
.on need for amusements, 5-6, 442; 
on return of golden plates, 40; on 
Joseph Smith’s character, 66; on 
temporal power of Joseph Smith, 
75-76; on the Word of Wisdom, 80; 
on healing, 82; on confidence in Jo- 
seph Smith, 87; on Joseph Smith 
as a business man, 92-93; on mis- 
sionaries, I12; on the resurrection 
of Joseph Smith, 184-185, 185-186; 
on Noah, 186; on gambling and 
quarreling during the exodus, 222- 
223; on thieves, 242-243; on the In- 
dians, 244; on relation of wives and 
husbands, 245, 283, 309-312, 346-347, 
348-349; on effect of gold rush on 
Mormon women, 252-253; on the 
gold rush, 255, 256-257; on the Eng- 
lish language, 260-261; on educa- 
tion, 262, 263-264; on obedience of 
the people to him, 264; on the free- 
dom of the individual, 266; on faith 
and works, 267-268; on the value of 


478 


adversity, 268-269; on the vanity of 
riches, 269; on hand-cart emigra- 
tion, 274-275; on polygamy, 286- 
287, 290-291, 293-294, 298-299, 301, 
302, 304-305, 308; on Gladdenites, 
295-296; on adultery, 207-2908; on 
family prayers, 351-352; on care and 
feeding of children, 352-353; on 
Utah and the federal government, 
377; on federal officials sent to 
Utah, 381-382; on blood atonement, 
402-404; on charity, 420-421; on 
lawyers, 423-424, 440; on the United 
Order, 438-441; on Salt Lake The- 
ater, 446; on death, 456-458 

Young, Brigham, Jt. 259, 307, 335- 


336, 372, 373, 402 
Young, Brigham Morris, 327 


INDEX 


Young, Clarissa Decker, 219, 326 
Young, Fanny, 146 
Weert Harriet Page Wheeler, 210, 
23 
Young, John, 4, 5-6, 8, 12-13 | 
Young, John W., 331, 450, 462 
Peary Joseph (Brigham’s brother), 
» 9, 13 
oung, Joseph (Brigham’s grand- 
father), 4 
Young, Lorenzo Dow, 8, 219, 238, 240 
Young, Oscar Brigham, 326 
Young, Phineas, 8, 11, 12 
Young, Dr. Seymour B., 332 


Zion's Army, 98 
Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Insti- 
tution, 437 


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